Borneo Orangutan Society Canada is an independent, registered Canadian charity founded to support orangutan conservation and to raise awareness of the serious threats to orangutan survival. We are dedicated to protecting wild and rehabilitant orangutans and their native habitat. The funds we raise primarily support orangutan protection in the field, in Indonesia and Malaysia, including rescuing displaced wild orangutans, rehabilitating ex-captives to forest life, surveying and protecting existing orangutan populations and habitat, and conservation education. We operate entirely by dedicated volunteers, minimize administrative costs, and ensure that the funds we raise reach the projects we support in the field. Our activities in Canada focus on education and fundraising.
Our Activities: Awareness, Education, and Support:
- Support for orangutan conservation projects in habitat countries
- Support for research
- Community education and educational materials for schools
- Including developing documentaries, photographs, articles, and books
- Local activities include public lectures, art shows, class visits
See our newsletters for information about our recent activities.
Working on an orangutan conservation project? We’d like to help!
Check out our grants page for more information.
Contact
Borneo Orangutan Society Canada
Registered Canadian Charity # 86282 4786 RR0001
74 Boultbee Ave.
Toronto, ON, Canada
M4J1B1
Tel: +1 (416) 462-1039
Fax: +1 (416) 487-6851
Email: boscanada@gmail.com
Board of Directors
Executive Director
Anne E. Russon, PhD
Since 1989, Anne has been studying intelligence and learning in ex-captive Bornean orangutans rehabilitated and released to free forest life. Studies have been affiliated with orangutan projects in Tanjung Puting National Park, Central Indonesian Borneo, and Orangutan Reintroduction Projects in East and Central Indonesian Borneo. Dr. Russon has published numerous research and popular articles on orangutan intelligence, scholarly and popular books on great ape intelligence. Dr. Russon has contributed to several documentaries on orangutans as scientific advisor and participant. She serves on advisory boards for several orangutan support organizations (Alchemy Films, Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation–Indonesia, the Orangutan Conservancy, Orangutan Network).
Rob Laidlaw
Rob is a Chartered Biologist and a founder of the international wildlife protection charity Zoocheck. He has been involved in a wide variety of investigative, public awareness and legislative campaigns, as well as high profile litigations and animal rescues, both in Canada and abroad. Rob is also as award-winning author of nine children’s book on wildlife protection and animal welfare, as well as numerous other book chapters and reports. In 2014, he was given the prestigious Frederic A. McGrand Award for substantial contributions to animal welfare in Canada.
Kristin Andrews, PhD
Kristin is York Research Chair in Animal Minds and Associate Professor of Philosophy at York University. In her research, Andrews works on developing a better understanding of the continuities between humans and other animals when it comes to sociality and morality, and she takes a critical lens to methodology in animal cognition research. Andrews’s books include Do Apes Read Minds? Toward a New Folk Psychology (MIT 2012) – a defense of her normative and pluralistic theory of folk psychology; The Animal Mind (Routledge 2015) – a survey of how empirical work on animal minds can help to inform debates in the philosophy of mind; and The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds (co-edited with Jacob Beck) – an anthology of current philosophical research.
Laura Adams, MA
Laura is currently working on her PhD in Psychology at York University under the supervision of Dr. Suzanne MacDonald. Her research focuses on cognitive development in orangutans. She travels to Indonesian Borneo to study infant and juvenile orangutans at rehabilitation projects. These young orangutans are orphaned due to reduced habitat from palm oil plantations and the illegal pet trade. They are rehabilitated to be released back into the rain forest to help preserve this endangered species. For her master’s degree in 2004 she observed social learning: how young orangutans learn what to eat from each other. For her PhD she is studying the cognitive and social aspects of play.
Treasurer
Sarah Iannicello, MES
Sarah is a recent graduate of the Environmental Studies Masters program at York University in Toronto. Her research focused on orangutan arboreality, behavioural flexibility, and conservation. She has been working with BOS Canada in varying capacities since 2012, and in that time has completed several months of field work observing the wild orangutans in Kutai National Park, Indonesian Borneo. Sarah has also worked with Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary since 2014, and has recently joined their Board of Directors.
Secretary
Charmaine Quinn
Charmaine is dedicated to working with animals in need and donating her time and her heart to them. Her weekends are spent at the Toronto Wildlife Centre, the Donkey Sanctuary of Canada, the Toronto Zoo and Story Book Farm. Her love for orangutans has her volunteering her time at the Toronto Zoo as an interpreter for the orangutans. Charmaine has made several visits to Borneo where she worked at the rehabilitation centre where she cared for orphaned and ex-captive orangutans.
Scientific Advisors
Dr. S. Wich
Dr. R. Shumaker
Dr. I. Singleton
Web Developer
Adam Bebko, PhD
Volunteers
Dinda Prayunita
Purwo Kuncoro
Kate Maklan
Joshua Smith
Tina Vlahos
Mike Reid