Celina Chien's Image

A male Bornean orang-utan in China's Yunnan Wild Animal Park grips the bars on the door between the indoor and outdoor enclosures.

Celina says, 'The sight of him immediately brought me to tears as I stood there, helplessly watching him shake the barred hatch in the door.'

Orang-utans are a common sight in zoos and wildlife parks around the world, many of which are taken from the wild as infants. Once in captivity, they are confined to small enclosures a fraction of their usual habitat, without the stimuli needed to keep their capable brains content and happy.

This male only had a metal bed frame with a wooden plank for a mattress and a plastic bottle of flavoured drink. It had no opportunity for stimulation and appeared numb to the crowd of visitors peering into the glass enclosure.

In the wild, orang-utans spend most of their days foraging for food in the forest canopy. They use things they find in the forest to extract insects and honey for food.

How you can help

• Be an animal-friendly tourist. Don't visit places that make money off the exploitation of animals. Instead, support local businesses that protect and care for nature.
• Protect the livelihoods of wild orang-utans by supporting organisations that conserve their rainforest habitats.
• Consider supporting an orang-utan rehabilitation project in Borneo or Sumatra which helps previously captive animals return to life in the wild.

We are trialling longer online captions for Wildlife Photographer of the Year 57. See all the images in focus or find out more about our tests.