Rest In Peace Birutė Galdikas
Birutė Galdikas, the last of “The Trimates” - often referred to as Leakey’s Angels - passed away on 24th March 2026.
Chosen by archaeologist and paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, she was one of three pioneering women tasked with studying great apes in the wild. She would follow Jane Goodall who was studying Chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania, and Dian Fossey’s research on mountain gorillas in Rwanda’s Virunga Region by devoting her life to understanding the least-studied of the great apes: the Bornean orangutan.
Her decades-long fieldwork became the longest continuous study of a mammal conducted by a single principal investigator, transforming scientific understanding of orangutan behaviour, ecology and conservation. Alongside her students and colleagues, Galdikas helped reveal the complex, solitary nature of orangutans and the immense threat they face.
She co-founded Orangutan Foundation International to raise global awareness about orangutans and the rapid destruction of their rainforest habitat, largely driven by palm oil expansion. She also oversaw the rescue and rehabilitation of many orangutans- most of them young orphans taken from the illegal pet trade.
Birutė Galdikas leaves behind a profound legacy of science, conservation compassion for one of the world’s most endangered great apes.
