As spectators passing through zoos on a whim, it can be easy to forget that for animals bred in captivity, this life, contained to an enclosure, is all they know.
Without open spaces and animals of their own kind to interact with, their lives boil down to one seemingly endless parade of faces pressed up against the glass.
It is on this premise that this photo of an orang-utan in the Moscow Zoo was taken.
The orangutan is seen perched on top of a rock, without the cover of its native vegetation, surrounded by ogling crowds.
Animal activist website, The Dodo, reported on this image, asking the program manager for the Born Free Foundation to comment.
“It is hard to say too much without the wider context and knowledge of the enclosure,” Chris Draper told The Dodo, “[But] the picture presents a striking contrast between the zoo visitors and the orangutan: a moment’s interest and comedy for the visitors and a lifetime’s captivity for the orangutan.”
Draper then goes on to comment that, although orang-utans are usually exclusively arboreal (travelling via trees and vines), “finding safety and comfort in the trees”, this orang-utan is in a situation of “endless streams of visitors may file past at eye level with this intelligent and sensitive ape”.
“It is difficult to imagine how exhibiting the orangutan in this manner is helping to conserve wild orangutans,” Draper adds, “Will the visitors become ardent conservationists or even reconsider their use of palm oil — the production of which is a significant contributor to the destruction of orangutan habitat — having briefly laughed at an ape in captivity?”
“Something tells me,” he says, “it is unlikely.”
The orangutan in the top picture is not related at all to the orangutan in the second.
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