The moment was captured by an amateur photographer on the island of Borneo, in Asia. An orangutan looks at a man who was cleaning a river infested with snakes and, seeing that he was stuck, extends a hand to help him out.
The image was shared on Instagram on January 23 and the author does not hide his surprise at having gone viral on the internet, with the impact being measured by the reactions he received from followers around the world, with more than 55 thousand likes and thousands of comments, besides being news in the international press.
Amateur photographer Anil Prabhakar captured the moment when he was on safari with a group of friends in a protected forest in Borneo and under the management of a defense foundation for this species of orangutan (Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation).
“There were reports of snakes in that area, so the guardian [ao serviço da fundação] was removing them from the site, “he told CNN. “I saw an orangutan getting too close to the man and he just held out his hand,” he recalled.
“It was difficult for the guardian of the forest to move in the muddy water and with the current of the river. It almost looked like the orangutan was asking: can I help?”, He described.
“I wasn’t even thinking about shooting. I never expected anything like this. I just recorded the moment. It was very emotional,” he confessed.
Poisonous snakes are a threat to Borneo’s orangutans, which are already threatened by forest fires, habitat loss and poaching. “We can say that snakes are your biggest enemy,” explained Anil Prabhakar, who is a geologist by profession in Kerala, India.
The image does not show but the amateur photographer revealed: the guardian ended up moving away and leaving the water alone. Why? “He said that [este animais] are totally wild, we don’t know how they would react “.
The orangutan with his hand extended to help the man was a moment that lasted for three to four minutes but it was enough for an image to go viral on the internet. “I am so happy to have watched that moment,” said the photographer.
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