Birutė Galdikas

Birutė Marija Filomena Galdikas or Biruté Mary Galdikas (10 May 1946 – 24 March 2026) was a Canadian anthropologist, primatologist, conservationist, ethologist and author. She was a professor at Simon Fraser University. In the field of primatology, Galdikas was recognized as a leading authority on orangutans. Prior to her field study of orangutans, scientists knew little about the species.

Early life Galdikas was born on 10 May 1946 in Wiesbaden, Greater Hesse, Germany. Her parents, Antanas and Filomena Galdikas, were Lithuanian refugees fleeing the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states following World War II. When Galdikas was two years old, the family moved to Canada, When she grew older, she was inspired by the National Geographic adventures of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. She had two younger brothers and a younger sister.

Education In 1962, the Galdikas family moved to Vancouver. Galdikas's research became the basis of her doctoral studies, and she earned her doctorate in anthropology from UCLA in 1978. and by the public as "Leakey's Angels", the trio also comprised Jane Goodall, who studied chimpanzees, and Dian Fossey, who studied gorillas. Her long-term research at Camp Leakey, carried out in collaboration with her doctoral students Gary Shapiro (early 1980s) and Graham L. Banes (2000s–2010s), has spanned multiple generations of fieldwork and contributed substantially to understanding orangutan behaviour, ecology, and conservation, including identification of the species' eight-year birth cycle - which makes orangutans highly vulnerable to extinction, although the 6,000 wild orangutans living in Tanjung Puting today constitute the largest single population in the world. Together, this collaborative body of work helped establish one of the most comprehensive longitudinal datasets on a wild great ape population. At the time, the research program constituted the world's longest continuous study of any mammal led by a single principal investigator.

Orangutan Foundation International In 1986, Galdikas and her colleagues founded Orangutan Foundation International (OFI), based in Los Angeles, USA, to help support orangutans around the world.

Advocacy and rehabilitation work Galdikas remained in Borneo for over 40 years while becoming an outspoken advocate for orangutans and the preservation of their rainforest habitat, which is rapidly being destroyed by loggers, palm oil plantations, gold miners, and unnatural conflagrations. Galdikas's conservation efforts also extended beyond advocacy, with an additional focus on rehabilitation of the orphaned orangutans turned over to her for care. Many of these orphans were once illegal pets, before becoming too smart and difficult for their owners to handle.

Galdikas was a professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, and Professor Extraordinaire at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta.

Death Galdikas died in Los Angeles on 24 March 2026, at the age of 79, from lung cancer.

Recognition Galdikas was featured in Life; The New York Times; the Los Angeles Times; numerous television documentaries; and twice on the cover of National Geographic.

In 1995, Galdikas was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Along with fellow Trimate Jane Goodall and preeminent field biologist George Schaller, Galdikas received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 1997 for her groundbreaking field research and lifetime contributions to the advancement of environmental science. Other honours include Indonesia's Hero for the Earth Award (Kalpataru); Institute of Human Origins Science Award; the Sierra Club Chico Mendes Award (1992); She was awarded a key to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. In June of 2025 she was awarded the Explorers Club Medal

Media Books Reflections of Eden: My Years with the Orangutans of Borneo (1995). . Orangutan Odyssey (1999). . Great Ape Odyssey (2005). Abrams: New York. .

Film and television Galdikas starred in the feature documentary Born to Be Wild 3D, released in April 2011. She also appeared in the documentaries Nature (TV series, PBS, 2005); Life and Times (TV series, CBC, 1996); 30 Years of National Geographic Specials (TV documentary, 1995); Orangutans: Grasping the Last Branch (documentary, 1989); Beauty and the Beasts (Channel 4 UK documentary, 1996); The Last Trimate (TV documentary, 2008); She Walks with Apes (CBC TV documentary, 2019); and Terry Pratchett's Jungle Quest (documentary, C4, UK 1995).

Controversy Galdikas was criticised in the late 1990s regarding her methods of rehabilitation. Primatologists debated the issue on the Internet mailing list Primate-Talk; the issue was further fuelled by the publication of articles in Outside magazine (May 1998) and Newsweek (June 1998). As reported in both articles and summarized in the 1999 book A Dark Place in the Jungle by Canadian novelist Linda Spalding, the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry—with whom Galdikas had clashed over logging policies—claimed that Galdikas held "a very large number of illegal orangutans ... in very poor conditions" at her Indonesian home, prompting the government to consider formal charges.