“It’s a girl!” Melissa Peterson exclaims.
\n\nJust outside the operating room, the hallway erupts in cheers. Joseph Dewane, an ob-gyn, has just delivered a healthy baby via C-section; Autumn Joi Goodwin-Samson, a neonatalist, tends to the newborn still slick with a waxy film.
\n\nIt’s a successful delivery just like any other except for one, minor, difference: The patient is an orangutan.
\n\nRuhana—or just “Ru” for short—is one of eight orangutan babies born in a collection of US zoos since the beginning of 2025. For these critically endangered primates, that’s a staggering figure. It’s also not random: The baby boom is the result of a meticulous breeding plan and decades of research to weave a conservation safety net, one birth at a time.
\n\n“It might seem like it was all a coincidence that everyone was born at the same time, but it was very carefully planned,” says Angie Selzer, a senior animal care specialist with the Fort Wayne Zoo in Indiana and the Orangutan Species Survival Plan (SSP) program coordinator.
\n\nThe SSP has been coordinating breeding recommendations since 1985; every two years, the program creates a breeding and transfer plan for animals at zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/