Leif Cocks\u2019 postgraduate studies at Curtin have paralleled his passion to save the endangered orangutans of Borneo and Sumatra.<\/p>\n
Two years after graduating\u00a0with a Bachelor of Applied Science, Cocks applied for a job at Perth Zoo where he eventually became the orangutan keeper.<\/p>\n
It was the beginning of a lifelong commitment to the endangered red primates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe orangutans liked me and I liked them \u2013 I could go inside the enclosure and build up their trust, and not be injured, whereas other keepers couldn\u2019t,\u201d Cocks says.<\/p>\n
In the Bahasa language, \u2018Orangutan\u2019 means \u2018man of the forest\u2019. An adult orangutan has the intelligence of a six-year-old human.<\/p>\n
During 12 years as the zoo\u2019s orangutan keeper, Cocks completed a Graduate Diploma in Natural Resources at Curtin – specialising in primate behaviour.<\/p>\n
His research led to the redesign of enclosures at the zoo after he discovered primates were far less stressed when they were higher than human eye level.<\/p>\n
Cocks’ long association with Curtin’s Department of Environmental Biology culminated in a masters degree after he examined factors affecting the health and wellbeing of captive orangutans.<\/p>\n
He found that female orangutans were dying due to faster periods between breeding and that Sumatran and Bornean orangutans \u2013 then thought to be the same species \u2013 when cross-bred were weaker and dying at a greater rate, suggesting they were different.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came to the conclusion that orangutans don\u2019t belong in captivity and cannot survive through the captive breeding programs alone \u2013 the only way to ensure their survival was to save them in the wild,\u201d Cocks says.<\/p>\n
Spurred into action, he started the Australian Orangutan Project 11 years ago to raise public awareness and money to increase numbers of the endangered species.<\/p>\n
Today, only about 6000 Sumatran orangutans are left in the wild.<\/p>\n
In a 2006 world-first, Temara – a Sumatran orangutan reared by Cocks at Perth Zoo – was released into the Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in central Sumatra.<\/p>\n
Bukit Tigapuluh is a 144,000-hectare park protected from poaching and logging and funded by Perth Zoo and the Australian Orangutan Project.<\/p>\n
More than 100 Sumatran orangutans now live alongside Temara.<\/p>\n
The Australian Orangutan Project has advanced from three volunteers meeting after work at the zoo to a million-dollar-a-year operation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an all-consuming thing which might not necessarily bring financial or academic rewards, but the rewards are achieving a higher goal for conservation and animal welfare,\u201d Cocks says.<\/p>\n
Based on story from <\/strong>C<\/a><\/strong>ITE<\/a> by <\/strong>ISOBELLE MCKAY<\/strong><\/p>\n Photograph: JAMES ROGERS<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leif Cocks\u2019 postgraduate studies at Curtin have paralleled his passion to save the endangered orangutans of Borneo and Sumatra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"7839,6657,6936,4988,7569,8290","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-4708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"","qualification":"","link":"","description":"","faculty":""}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}},"post_components":false},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Jarrad","last_name":"Long","display_name":"Jarrad Long"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-20 17:08:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4708"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=4708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}