Genetic Mismatch Brings a Cruel End to Orangutan Affair

After nearly 20 years together, Josephine and Denny are splitting up.

San Francisco Zoo officials want to send Josephine to the Philadelphia Zoo, because she and Denny belong to separate subspecies. Josephine is a Bornean orangutan, Denny is Sumatran.

Experts, who only recently became adept at distinguishing between the two subspecies, believe it is best to keep the two genetic strains separate, zoo Director Saul Kitchener said. “These animals are not fulfilling their destinies,” he said. “They are producing ‘non-animals.’ ”

The planned breakup, so commonplace among humans, has angered some zoo benefactors.

“These are extremely sensitive animals, among our closest relatives in nature. (Josephine) has been here for 22 years, and a change of this magnitude . . . can only be seen as extremely cruel,” Carroll and Violet Soo-Hoo argued in a letter to Mayor Art Agnos.

“We know what happens when humans are uprooted from their families. It is not much different for these animals, since they are so intelligent,” the Soo-Hoos, who plan to organize a petition drive to halt Josephine’s departure, said.

But Kitchener said much of the Soo-Hoos’ argument is misplaced sentimentality and that the larger issue is the very survival of the endangered apes.

Violet, Josephine and Denny’s only offspring--born in 1978 and named after Mrs. Soo-Hoo--would not exist in the wild because Borneo and Sumatra are separate islands, Kitchener said. For years, Josephine has been on contraceptives to prevent the birth of another hybrid.