Orangutan Asks a Girl For Help in Sign Language

A YouTube video titled "Amazing! Orangutan asks girl for help in sign language" was released in 2013. It was a campaign launched by the NGO Rainforest Action Network, founded in 1985 and based in California (USA), whose mission is to campaign for forests, their people, and ecosystems through consumer education and non-violent direct action.

Oraguntanes (photo: Rainforest Action Network)

One of the wonderful things about Sign Language is that, for the first time in history, it made it possible for a non-human to express to a human his desires, thoughts or feelings, beginning with Washoe in the 1970s, as discussed in this post of Unusualverse. In this campaign, Sign Language also helps to give a voice to the orangutans who are endangering their survival due to the use of palm oil used in the food industry.

Although this spot is a fiction and some of the things said by the orangutan, Strawberry, are not possible due to the cognitive limits of primates, thanks to the Sign Language it succeeds in communicating the message "if orangutans speak...".

The YouTube video has reached almost 1.5 million views (English subtitles):