8 Sept 2011 - New York, NY- Captive orangutans are extremely intelligent animals that for various reasons spend considerable time alone within their enclosures. Sometimes their mood or health requires they be kept isolated, and cold weather in northern states can keep them indoors for long periods of time. Many orangutans appear to be bored with little to occupy their clever minds.

In a proposed pilot program to address this issue, the orangutan advocacy group Orangutan Outreach has created a new program called "Apps for Apes". Working with several institutions housing orangutans, Orangutan Outreach is seeking to acquire iPads and prepare them for deployment to an initial group of orangutans to test the devices.

"Our primary goal with this project is to provide enrichment for the orangutans," said Orangutan Outreach Director Richard Zimmerman. "But another important goal is to raise public awareness of the crisis facing orangutans in the wild due to habitat loss and poaching. We hope that when people see the orangutans using their iPads, they will see orangutans in a new light and want to help with our conservation efforts in the field."

 

With human help orangutans will have the opportunity to use the iPads to have access to music, games, movies, cartoons, art, painting, drawing, photos and videos. In time, the orangutans will be able to use the devices to see and interact with each other. Apps4Apes will also enable cognitive researchers to monitor the development of the orangutans' problem solving and communicative skills using the touch screen devices. Ultimately, the iPads may even be used to activate elements of their environment. For example, a set of icons could be presented so that the orangutans can choose what food treats they will get or which enclosure they spend the day in.

“It is a matter of giving choice to the orangutans”, said Orang Utan Republik Foundation President Gary Shapiro. “Captive orangutans have had their freedom taken from them so they can be on display for our pleasure- they don’t have the choice of being in the zoo or not. Perhaps they can exercise choice by being able to manipulate icons on the tablet that lead to something significant in their lives.” Shapiro conducted cognitive studies with orangutans in the 1970s and co-authored a paper on orangutan ethics in which he made the case for giving orangutans the ability to make choices within the captive environment.

For more information and to see videos showing an orangutan playing with an iPad, visit Orangutan Outreach's Apps4Apes page:  http://redapes.org/a4a

---