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Dear friends and family, We went to the Washington Zoo yesterday...it was fun and yet there was alot of saddness...the Zoo personnel decorated for Halloween for the kids and there were scarecrows and tombstones everywhere...as we realized the tombstones had names on them and they were names of animal species, we recognized that they were names of animals who were now extinct. As I watched the Buffalo, the Gorilla family and the Cheeta and read about the Panda coming in December I was deeply moved. They are spectacular animals, one of God's greatest gifts to man and we have really made poor stewards. As we were leaving the Zoo, I saw an Orangutan stick his head out of a window in the Great Ape House...he had a large black plastic bucket on his head and was wearing it like a crown. Gail...who feels like each time we write an animal name we should capitalize the word out of respect for them. ================================================ Orangutans Edging Closer to Brink of Extinction Willie Smits is a man on a mission. He has just completed a cross-country speaking tour in the United States, and he has one message: It's now or never when it comes to orangutan conservation. A forestry scientist from the Netherlands, Smits emigrated to Indonesia 20 years ago to help the country grow trees. Today he runs the world's largest orangutan rehabilitation center and is in the forefront of a campaign to save the species in the wild. He faces great odds. Orangutans once ranged throughout Southeast Asia. Today they can be found only on the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Scientists estimate that in the last 10 years their numbers have been reduced by up to 50 percent, to perhaps as few as 13,000 living in the wild. http://www.ngnews.com/news/2000/10/10242000/orangutans_3202.asp