When Anil Prabhakar stepped into the jungle, he hoped to spot a wild orangutan.
Instead, he captured a surprisingly beautiful act of kindness.
Prabhakar, a nature photographer and photojournalist who lives in Indonesia, has always believed
in the power of photography to elicit both emotion and social change.
"My way of thinking is that every photo can speak for itself," Prabhakar told The Dodo.
“Trying to invoke an emotion you relate to is more important than anything else.”
Few years ago, Prabhakar learned about the plight of orangutans due to deforestation
and became involved with the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation.
In 2019, he visited their headquarters.
They offered him a tour and discussed their programs with him; he found all the information
he was looking for at the foundation.
“This organization rescues orangutans from habitat loss, poachers and those being kept
in captivity,” Prabhakar said.
“They will rescue them and help them get back to the wild.
They treat them if they are injured and help with the trauma they’ve faced.
Then they move them to a temporary forest, where they can get used to being wild, and
release them to the main forest.”
While trekking through the jungle, Prabhakar noticed a crew member enter a small river.
He asked the guards why the man was approaching the orangutan’s habitat, and they told him
that a snake had been spotted over there.
“Poisonous snakes are dangerous to orangutans, so they have to take care of those things,”
Prabhakar said.
“So, this fellow started cleaning these bushes all along the river, and it was as
if he was moving in slow motion because his legs were getting stuck inside the mud.”
Prabhakar noticed that the man was struggling to lift his legs — but he wasn’t the only
one concerned.
A female orangutan who sat close by was also watching the drama unfold.
“Suddenly, this orangutan came closer to the river banks, sat there and watched what
this fellow was doing,” Prabhakar said.
“When this fellow struggled to pull out his legs, the orangutan put her left hand
on the bank of the river and extended her other hand towards him.
It was a lovely gesture.”
For three minutes, the orangutan offered to help pull the man from the mud, but the man
ignored the extended hand and moved away.
Prabhakar was shocked.
“For me, this was completely new,” Prabhakar said.
“I never expected to see anything like that.
In my mind, this orangutan was trying to help him.
It’s human nature — if someone is in trouble, you go there and lend a hand.”
When the crew member returned to the shore, Prabhakar asked why he hadn’t accepted the
orangutan’s gift of help.
The man explained that he was there only as a “lifeguard” and must never engage with
the wild animals.
He added that orangutans have such strong hands and arms that he might’ve gotten hurt,
or worse, the orangutan might’ve lost her balance and fallen into the river.
Prabhakar held on to the powerful photos he took that day for a year before deciding to
share them.
The contradiction of the orangutan trying to help a human — even after all humans
have done to destroy her natural habitat — touched Prabhakar deeply.
Prabhakar's grateful that he was able to document this and share it with the world.
He sees this as a lesson, and hopes others will learn from it too.
Orangutans are among the most intelligent non-human primates.
Experiments suggest they can track the displacement of objects both visible and hidden.
Zoo Atlanta has a touch-screen computer on which their two Sumatran orangutans play games.
A 2008 study of two orangutans at the Leipzig Zoo showed orangutans can use "calculated
reciprocity", which involves weighing the costs and benefits of gift exchanges and keeping
track of these over time.
Orangutans are the first nonhuman species documented to do so.