Reflections of Eden

Reflections of Eden by Birute M F Galdikas. Published by Little, Brown & Co, Boston, MA, 1995. 1st Edition1st Printing. Hardbound in Glassine Protected DJ. Size 8vo (up to 9-1/2'' tall). Condition: Nr Fine in Good DJ. Discarded Library Book. 408 Pgs. ISBN 0316301817. LCCN 93-22948. My Years with the Orangutans of Borneo. From the first, it was an adventure. In 1971, at age twenty-five, the author left the placid world of American academia for the remote jungles of Indonesian Borneo. Living with her husband in a primitive camp, she became surrogate mother to a ''family'' of ex-captive orangutans - and gradually adjusted to the blood-sucking leeches, swarms of carnivorous insects, and constant humidity that rotted her belongings in the first year. Her first son spent the early years of his life at Camp Leakey with adopted orangutans as his only playmates. The wild orangutans the author studied and the ex-captives she rehabilitated became an extended family of characters no less vivid than her human companions. Throatpouch, a huge and irritable grouch, fought off rivals for the right to claim adolescent Priscilla as his mate. Handsome Cara at first tried to rid the forest of its human intruder by hurling dead branches at her from the canopy above. Little Sugito, rescued from a cramped cage and returned to the jungle claimed her as his mother and clung to her fiercely, night and day, for months. A groundbreaking chronicler of the orangutans' life cycle, the author also describes the threats that increasingly menace them: the battles with poachers and loggers, the illicit trade in infant orangutans, the frustrations of official bureaucracy. Her story is a rare combination of personal epiphany, crucial scientific discovery, and international impact - a life of human and environmental challenge. Description text copyright 2006 BooksForComfort. Item ID 11120.