Birute Galdikas (Galdikas Birut)

(p. 1946)
Born May 10, 1946 in the American occupation zone of Germany. Her parents, natives of Lithuania, had fled during the Soviet offensive, and in 1949 emigrated to Canada. Galdikas studying at the University of British Columbia, and then entered the University of California at Los Angeles, where she received a degree in psychology and began to engage in research in the field of anthropology. She met with L. Leakey - Paleontology, opened in East Africa, fossils of ancestors of a man who has had her support in the study of orangutans. In 1971, Galdikas went to Borneo to take observations of orangutans. Research Galdikas, which she held for 25 years, let us study the lives of over three generations of these animals. Galdikas has played a big role in protecting the reserve Tanjung Puting for orangutans in Borneo and helped to create on its basis the National Park. With it was returned to the forest more than 150 orangutans were born in the wild, but caught in captivity. Galdikas - Professor Simon Fraser University in Burnaby (British Columbia) and the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, the president of the International Fund for the protection of orangutans in Los Angeles.