In the case of Geerdink, here is a modest man with an open,
patient, straightforward manner.
One orangutan was watching Geerdink with curiosity and then had come to look into his eyes.
Then Geerdink does his own fingerprint on paper
and gives the orangutan the paper to smell and examine.
Geerdink was 67 this summer,
retired after 39 years as a police fingerprint expert who has helped solve 300 murder cases.
I met the Dutchman Jan Geerdink on the island of Sulawesi, in Indonesia, this summer, while he was fingerprinting 600 orangutans.
Geerdink was working this summer in Indonesia with two noble orangutan patriots,
the maverick conservationist Willie Smits and his road warrior partner Richard Zimmerman of the New York-based Orangutan Outreach.
What interests me most about Geerdink is how a simple, straightforward,
retired Dutch police officer with no prior knowledge or experience with orangutans could establish an instant rapport with an ape, while other, better equipped, more knowledgeable human beings are failing.