I met Dr. Biruté during my 2018 trip to Borneo while filming orangutans for our documentary Why On Earth. She was incredibly intelligent, soft-spoken, compassionate, stoic, and a true leader dedicated to protecting orangutans from extinction and preserving their critical rainforest habitat. Visiting her and the orangutans she rescued was truly an unforgettable experience.

Biruté was the third of a trio of women appointed by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey to study great apes in the wild, alongside Dr. Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. With support from Leakey and the National Geographic Society, she established Camp Leakey in Borneo. Her decades of research transformed our understanding of orangutan behavior and conservation.

In 1986, she founded Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) to support and protect orangutans in Indonesia. Working alongside her son Fred, her husband Pak Bohap, and the OFI team, she protected habitats, rehabilitated orphaned orangutans, and established wildlife corridors essential for their survival.

I’ll never forget her inviting me and the crew to lunch during my visit. She said many had promised to help over the years but few followed through. She asked, “Are you going to follow through and help us?” I said yes, and from that day forward, we became friends and continued supporting OFI’s mission.

Biruté was a force, a strong woman who didn’t take no for an answer. I deeply admired her unwavering dedication to raising awareness for a species rapidly declining due to palm oil and rubber plantations, logging, poaching, the illegal wildlife trade, and other threats. She was also a professor, author, and tireless advocate for conservation.

I feel incredibly blessed to have known and worked with her, and to have served on her board of directors, an honor I will carry with me forever. We must continue her legacy and be a voice for all animals, especially orangutans. I know that’s what she would have wanted.

May God bless you in Heaven, Dr. Biruté. You will be deeply missed. May your legacy live on forever!

-Katie Cleary