Orangutans fighting for survival

I MET a Wild Man of Borneo last week.

He peered down from the trees; then swung off through the branches. The encounter, though fleeting, was a special privilege.

The guidebook to Borneo’s Tabin Nature Reserve, an area of rainforest the size of two Irish counties, says that “visitors would have to be very fortunate to spot” an orangutan. The sighting, alas, did not indicate great field-craft skills on my part; led by a local guide deep into the heart of the reserve, we came upon scientists from Orangutan UK who pointed out the young male.