After Karen's birthday in June, things have settled down at the San Diego Zoo's Absolutely Apes, with the three siamangs and all six orangutans sharing the same habitat.  Unkie no longer hassles Cinta, our youngest orangutan, and all the apes have settled in nicely.

Clyde, our gentle giant male, is going to be 32 this month, and we are trying to come up with a way to celebrate his birthday. Meanwhile, Janey the Artiste continues to do well, her arthritis being managed by medication. While she has created wonderful masterpieces in the past, Janey seems to be artistically blocked right now, and has taken some time off from her art. Whether this is a permanent retirement is up to her artistic inclinations, and we will let her decide when she is inspired again.

Absolutely Apes, as always, will play a large role in Great Ape Awareness Days at the Zoo November 13 through 16. Highlighting the plight of all the great apes in the wild the events for Great Ape Awareness Days will be updated here as they become available.

The following was written by one of Janey's animal care staff, Juan Fernandez:

Last month I had the opportunity to attend the New Living Expo in San Francisco. On behalf of the San Diego Zoo, I accepted an invitation by the director of Orangutan Outreach, Richard Zimmerman, and his wife, Robin, to help raise awareness and funds directly contributing to orangutan conservation. Armed with some show-and-tell items, information pamphlets, and 50 plush orangutan toys, we had no idea what to expect from the thousands of anticipated guests visiting that weekend.

We were very excited about this pilot program and we wanted to get people excited about conservation. To get their attention, we decorated an elaborate booth filled with cute orangutan photos and canvas art pieces made by our resident Bornean orangutan, Janey. People were naturally drawn to our booth. Once they approached, we talked about the palm oil industry and its direct effect on the ecology of many animals in Indonesia, specifically Bornean and Sumatran orangutans.

The large corporate logging industries are destroying the forests in Indonesia at a fast rate. According to FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) reports, between the years 2000 and 2005, Indonesia had the second-most cleared tropical rain forest in the world. This diverse ecosystem is home to the only great ape that occurs outside of Africa, the orangutan. Other species include the Sumatran tiger, pygmy rhino, clouded leopards, and pygmy forest elephants.

Unfortunately, Indonesian rain forest is prime land for the world's second-most produced crop oil in the world. The African oil palm Elaeis guineensis was introduced to Southeast Asia in the early 1600s. Roughly 90 percent of the palm oil produced comes from the Indonesian region. The problem comes into focus once we begin to see how unaware consumers contribute to this issue. Most Americans have no idea how many products in their home actually contain palm oil and palm-based products: detergents, soaps, cosmetics, and household products contain palm oil. One out of every five food items we buy at the grocery store, especially baked goods, contain palm oil. Other wording that is used in conjunction with palm oil is palmate, palm kernel, and even vegetable oil. There is little accountability from the large companies on where their palm oil is coming from. It's cheap to produce, has a favorable taste for food items, and it's a great preservative in many products.

Secondarily, the boom in biofuel as an alternative source of energy is using palm oil to run its machines. This low emission alternative comes with a high price as forests around the world are being destroyed at an alarming rate.

By becoming conscious consumers, we can have a huge positive impact on what goes on halfway around the world. Raising awareness and being able to pass this on was the message to the hundreds of people that came by our conservation booth. It was exhilarating and exhausting, but I enjoyed every second! On behalf of Orangutan Outreach, we collected over $2,000 in cash donations and another $2,000 in online adoptions. One hundred percent of the contributions went directly to benefit over 650 orphaned orangutans that lost their mothers due to the palm oil industry in Borneo.

Juan Fernandez is a senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

Watch our orangutans and siamangs daily on Ape Cam…

Karen, a Sumatran orangutan and Janey's exhibit-mate, celebrated her 16^th birthday today with presents and pink, princess-themed decorations throughout the orangutan exhibit at the San Diego Zoo. When Karen unwrapped her gift from the keepers, she found nuts, raisins and whole-grain cereal among the shredded packing paper. Karen was born at the San Diego Zoo on June 11, 1992, and made history in 1994 when she became the first orangutan in a zoo to undergo open-heart surgery to repair a hole in her heart.

A photo of Karen examining one of her gifts is posted in Janey's photo gallery.

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Orangutans are native to the rain forests of northern Sumatra and parts of Borneo but are extinct in much of Asia due to farming and palm oil plantations that destroy their natural habitats and food sources.