By Leif Cocks, founder of The Orangutan Project
I was heading up the African species area at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia and a large female giraffe had become injured. She’d severely broken her front leg, and the only possible course was to euthanize her.
I had to guide her into her night quarters and hold her down whilst the vet administered a lethal injection. I was holding this frightened animal as she was slowly poisoned and I can tell you that the giraffe absolutely did not want to die. In fact, she fought to live with every last ounce of her strength and will power.
The sudden and immediate horror made me understand not just intellectually, but also emotionally, that every living creature wants to live.
No animal wants to die. So, to take life from another living being is shockingeven when you’re doing so on compassionate grounds. It’s a crime.
For me, this was a turning point. At that moment I became vegetarian because I realised no meat or taste of food was more important to me, than the life of another living creature.
I also saw that no animal needed or deserved to die simply to satisfy my dietary desires, when I could operate perfectly well without meat in my diet. I no longer wanted the death of any animal on my hands or, killed out of sight on my behalf.
I also saw that I had an issue with animals’ suffering prior to their death. Because, no matter how humans try to rationalise and justify the suffering of livestock animals as humane, I had now experienced firsthand that the death of an animal was horrific. And this was so, even though we’d tried to kill the giraffe humanely.
From that moment, I began to make different choices about how I lived, ate and operated. I stopped eating meat, and chose fresh plant-based produce and free-range eggs and some dairy. I then moved to a vegan diet, which soon extended to not wearing leather or wool, and opting for canvas shoes and belts and woven cotton, hemp or linen clothes.
My choices were based upon not having animals suffer for me, and in many ways, it was a simple step to take. But I had further to go because whilst I was now not causing immediate suffering – I was still bearing witness to the unspeakable mass extinction of our time.
When people get overwhelmed, they become helpless. In founding The Orangutan Project, I wanted to make sure thousands of people could join together, pool our resources and do something to secure the survival of our fellow living beings.
Since I left the zoo and we launched this incredible movement, we’ve contributed more than $20,000,000 into directly protecting orangutans from extinction. My big goal is actually to raise that sum every year – because that’s what it’s going to take to legally secure the very few intact lowland ecosystems that remain in Indonesia, so Critically Endangered species can thrive in secure populations.
Will this be easy? Not at all! But if thousands of people join me, with an annual or even small monthly donation – it will be possible. Already, 4,500 wild orangutans and more than 3.3 million hectares of rainforest is under protection, thanks to The Orangutan Project’s supporters. We can do this!
Visit www.theorangutanproject.org to make a secure online donation. We are a tax-exempt non-profit organization 501(c)3, Registered tax ID 84-1899559.