‘I loved every minute of it’: Jungle Island’s orangutan mom dies after battle with ALS

If you asked Linda Jacobs how many children she had, she would say seven.

Two are human. The other five are the orangutans that once called Jungle Island home.

“I have more pictures of orangutans on my walls, than I do humans,” she said in an October interview.

Jacobs, who spent decades raising and caring for the Great Apes at the theme park and was affectionately known as the orangutan mom, died Thursday after a year-long battle with ALS. She was 66.

“Linda was one of the most dedicated people I have ever met,“said Bern Levine, the former Jungle