13 March, 2010 - Fresno, CA. Aazk (pronounced Azak) was a special orangutan who was born and raised at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. She died at the age of 34, but she touched the hearts of many who knew her. Some of those people came together at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo on March 13, 2010, to reminisce and celebrate Aazk's life in a panel discussion associated with a book launching that was aired live on the Internet.
Aazk's story was featured as the last story in the book, The Intimate Ape: Orangutans and the Secret Life of a Vanishing Species, by Shawn Thompson. Fittingly, Thompson chose the Fresno Chaffee Zoo as a place to launch his book and to focus the event around this special orangutan. He chose for his panel people who knew Aazk that were interviewed for the book: Gary Shapiro, Lyn Myers, Bruce and Trish Campbell. Later in the discussion, Thompson broadened the theme to include the value we place on orangutans, and Dr. Richard Haas, Shapiro's former professor and orangutan conservationist Michelle Desilets from the Orangutan Land Trust joined the panel discussion. The talk concluded with ideas as to what people can do to make a difference in the future survival of the species.
The evening event was broadcast live on the internet through Thompson's university and was watched by people as far away as Germany and Australia. A whimsical but thoughtful song composed by JP Taylor (inspired by a Thompson poem) was played as an introduction to the panel discussion. Thompson, the author, served as panel moderator and the panel to recall their memories of Aazk. Shapiro reminisced about the young Aazk who became his first orangutan student in 1973. The juvenile Sumatran orangutan learned to associate children's plastic letters with items and activities (referents) that formed the foundation of a basic symbolic communication system. Over time, Aazk demonstrated she could not only spell out simple sentences, but she could combine symbols to form new meanings. Shapiro was just as impressed by the orangutan's playful personality and her temperament that showed him how human-like the species behaved. Myers (a zookeeper) and the Campbells (zoo volunteers) knew Aazk as an older and more complex personality. How she interacted with human beings and with other orangutans was distinctive and unique to Aazk. In moving stories, the people who knew her expressed how this particular orangutan touched them and changed their lives in significant ways.
Dr. Richard Haas, Shapiro's former professor, was more philosophical and spoke about the essence of a species so close to us and how such a similarity can alter the way we think about ourselves in the natural world. Desilets also provided insight into the importance of not forgetting about individuals when confronting the challenges of saving the species. She has been involved in seeking protected land for the release of hundreds of ex-captive orangutans in Central Kalimantan (Borneo).
About AAZK: Her name was derived from the acronym of the American Association of Zookeepers which was meeting at the Fresno Zoo at the time of Aazk's birth in 1969. After a period of time with her mother, Suma, Aazk was moved to the zoo nursery with a baby chimpanzee, Brucie, who befriended her following her separation with her mother. Aazk then later became part of a language study with OURF President, Gary Shapiro, when he was conducting his master's degree thesis project at the California State University in Fresno (1973-1975). Aazk learned basic linguistic concepts by manipulating children's plastic letters and associating the letters to items and activities. She could, for example, place the letters on a board to spell out sentences such as Gary give orange (to) Aazk. She also demonstrated "productivity," the ability to appropriately combine previously learned symbols in ways that describe novel items, such as spelling out "orange" "water" to describe orange juice. Her story was featured in a children's book, Azak learns to Read by Jean Chaffee. For a few months before her death in 2003 of a kidney ailment, Aazk had an opportunity to experience the zoo's new orangutan enclosure.