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In this new series for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Sounds and ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4, best-selling author and scholar Katherine Rundell celebrates the lives of twenty astonishing but endangered animals. Each episode includes fascinating stories that connect natural history with cultural insight, myth and science — revealing how animals have shaped human imagination, and how our choices now shape their survival.

This first episode, The Orangutan, introduces us to Rose, who once lived in Napoleon’s household, and takes us deep into the forests of Borneo, where orangutans have learned to weed paths, wash clothes, and steal canoes — simply by watching the humans around them.

But fewer than 800 Tapanuli orangutans remain in the wild. Katherine asks what it means to live alongside such beings — and what it will take to ensure they remain part of our shared future.

Written and Presented by Katherine Rundell
Produced by Natalie Donovan for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Audio in Bristol