Stood close to the orang-utans in Chester Zoo's new Realm of the Red Ape facility, a feeling of kinship is hard to disown, even when the "stars" may be slouched in a corner looking like a pile of old carpet.

But confront them face to face through the glass windows of their enclosure and the solemn returning gaze suggests they know a thing or two that you don't.

Add to this their effortless grace in climbing, their casual feats of strength, and you realise this is an animal to admire and respect. It is also one that could be extinct in the wild during the next 10 or 20 years.

Illegal logging in Borneo and Sumatra is rapidly clearing the ancient forests which are the orang's natural habitat. Added to burning to clear ground for palm oil plantations, the combined effect is to force the apes into smaller and smaller areas.

Sometimes they die horribly in circles of fire. Other times the parents are shot and their distraught babies sold to the pet market. A harsh fate for a creature known poignantly as "the old man of the trees" and known for their intelligence.

The Realm of the Red Ape is a protected gene bank for the orang-utans, and a project synonymous with the zoo's vision of itself as an Ark for endangered species, as well as a wonderful facility for the visiting public.

The new enclosure cost £3.5 million to develop and includes a two-storey building that links with the old orang-utan house and includes three large indoor enclosures. These adjoin two more outdoor enclosures covered with a mesh roof.

The massive steel supports are shaped and clad to resemble trees and there are hanging straps that function as jungle vines. A highway in the sky for apes.

The Realm of the Red Ape represents the zoo's biggest capital project to date. It will aid the breeding programme and its efforts to help wild orang-utans in Borneo by protecting their habitat.

Mike Jordan, curator of birds and mammals, tells me orang-utans are great problem solvers and need to have their intelligence stimulated.

This involves making them work for their food as they would in the wild. It is hidden in different places that change day to day. High level access to the new buildings gives staff the chance to sprinkle food from above, simulating the retrieval of fruit from the jungle canopy.

Temperature and humidity are controlled for the six Sumatran and four Bornean orang-utans in what is presented as a micro-rainforest, with 2,000 plants, birds, small mammals, amphibians, reptiles and insects. Visitors can see it all from the canopy walk.

The Red Ape's realm doesn't depend on moats to keep them in. There is a water feature, but kept small so as not to deprive the apes of space they can use.

"They don't like water," says Mike, "but the four lar gibbons in with them love it. They will climb to the top of the poles outside and stretch upwards towards the falling rain."

Asked about the breeding programme, he says: "Orang-utans give birth every six to seven years. The same in captivity as in the wild. Chester has one of the best breeding records of any zoo in Europe.

"We move the babies on to other approved zoos when they are adolescents. At that age it's part of a natural cycle once they have learned how to survive.

We have a key role to play in telling the public about threats to orang-utans in the wild. We ask them not to have their pictures taken with one on holiday. Stop buying goods containing palm oil and hardwood timber from the vanishing forests."

The Realm of the Red Ape was crowded with visitors when I visited. Humans and animals enjoying the return of the sun after a long absence. People crowded five deep at the windows while the shy orang-utans snuck off to find what privacy they could.

Something in me objected to the human horde cramming the marvellous new building with their rucksacks, push-chairs, their wailing kids and dripping ice cream, the paying customers and visiting journalists.

But how could I explain to my lugubrious friend behind the glass that my species, which has connived at his destruction, is also his best chance of survival.

Chester Zoo is home to more than 500 species of animals and has housed orang-utans since the late 1950s. In those days it was a small family business. Now it is big business and one of the best zoos in the world.

It is no long enough to be soft about animals and vaguely interested in their welfare. The zoo has to be a successful business to carry on its invaluable work. And those who truly care need the zoological education to be useful.


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