Orangutan Sees Man Wading in Snake-Infested Water, Offers a Helping Hand

• Indian photographer-slash-geologist Anil Prabhakar has captured a rare moment with one of the endangered Bornean orangutans.
• In a photo shared via Instagram, he showed an orangutan extending a hand to help a man out of a snake-infested water.
• He called it the animal’s way of guiding humanity “back to the basics”.

Alfred Armand Montapert, author of The Supreme Philosophy of Man: The Laws of Life, once said, “Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal.”

Thinking of man’s love for animals in this way is sad, yet it rings true for many people. However, nature has a way of jarring us out of our jaded existence with some unexpected display of real love.

In a post by an amateur photographer and geologist, an orangutan has successfully tapped into our soft spot. It’s definitely an unexpected act of compassion as the orangutan offers to help a man wading in a snake-infested water.

Anil Prabhakar shared that the photo was from a safari trip at a conservation forest in Borneo. He said that the man in the photo was a warden who was clearing the water from snakes, when the orangutan came to help.

“There was a report of snakes in that area.” he said, “The warden came over, and he’s clearing snakes.”

Unfortunately, the warden could not move much because the water was muddy. So the orangutan extended a hand as if saying, ‘Let me help you.’ The guard had moved away in response, saying, “They’re completely wild, we don’t know how they’ll react.”

The entire scene lasted three or four minutes of “emotional moment” for Prabhakar. According to him, he feels it was the animals’ way of “guiding us back to our basics.”

Here’s a quick fact: Orangutans are among Indonesia’s critically endangered species. After 80% of them died in the past three decades, this compassionate animal is becoming rare. The slow reproduction process and the natural threats aren’t helping either.

The takeaway? Just grab the moment like Prabhakar did. Who knows when you can “feel so happy” that moments like this ever happen to you?