Playing with pigs or orangutans via an iPad might sound like
a novelty, but could this kind of digitally mediated interspecies
communication change our view of the animal kingdom, and our
treatment of it?
I'm not sure if the line is bad, whether Willie Smits is speaking to me in German or if he's just cooing down the phone to me. Turns out, it's a mixture of all three, but I'm not his intended -- Saima, one of 20 orangutans surrounding Smits as he speaks from the canopied centre of Jakarta's 140-hectare Ragunan Zoo, has him captive. The mobile range is impressive and the hooting of the primate, tender and chatty like a puppy pleading for attention, is clearly audible down the line.
"Really, they are like children who do not have a voice," says Smits. "If people understand that we're so closely related [we share 97 percent of our DNA] I hope they will become more upset with the destruction of their forest and realise we are actually taking away their country; because they have culture, they have language and they understand."
By: Liat Clark, Edited by: Olivia Solon
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