Birutė Galdikas

Birutė Galdikas (2012)

Birutė Mary F. Galdikas (also: Birutė Marija Filomena ; born May 10, 1946 in Wiesbaden , Germany ) is a Canadian zoologist and behavioral scientist and is considered the most experienced expert on the orangutans of Borneo .

Life

Galdikas' parents come from Lithuania and were on their way into exile in Canada when she was born in Germany. She grew up in Toronto , studied psychology and anthropology at the University of California in Los Angeles , where she also received her doctorate in 1978 .

Galdikas is next Dian Fossey ( gorillas ) and Jane Goodall ( chimpanzees ) one of three women who at the suggestion of the paleontologist Louis Leakey long-term studies the early 1960s about apes began. Leakey hoped to be able to draw conclusions about the behavior of the pre-humans from these behavioral observations . Together with the National Geographic Society , Leakey made it possible for Birutė Galdikas to set up a research station in Borneo to study the behavior of wild orangutans.

When she is not in the rainforest of Borneo, Birutė Galdikas works as a professor of anthropology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby in the Canadian province of British Columbia .

Birutė MF Galdikas: My orangutans. 20 years among the shy forest people . Scherz-Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 978-3-502-15225-5 (1998 as paperback, Lübbe, ISBN 978-3-404-12828-0 )
Birutė Mary Galdikas: Great Ape Odyssey. Harry N. Abrams Verlag, New York 2005, ISBN 978-0-8109-5575-2 (English, with a foreword by Jane Goodall)

personal data
SURNAME	Galdikas, Birutė
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Galdikas, Birutė Marija Filomena; Galdikas, Biruté Mary F.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Canadian zoologist and behaviorist
DATE OF BIRTH	May 10, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wiesbaden