Red heads should put on their animal tail costumes and head to the zoo this August 19 to celebrate World Orangutan Day.
Twycross zoo is offering free entry to all red heads who turn up on the day to mark the occasion.
Orangutans are an endangered species with many zoos holding breeding programmes to try and help maintain the orangutan population globally. This may include breeding them in captivity, in order to try and reintroduce them to the wild.
There are a number of orangutan babies that have recently been born at the zoo, which is proving to be a great pull to visitors.
The zoo wants to highlight the plight of orangutans, particularly how their numbers are being threatened by the palm oil industry.
Orangutans normally live in rainforest areas where they live in groups and forage fruit, but these habitats are being destroyed by deforestation in order to grow palm oil plants. An estimated 1000-5000 orangutans are killed each year for this development.
Not only are they finding their habitats are being destroyed, but they are also subject to illegal animal trafficking which is also causing dwindling numbers of orangutans in the wild.
Palm oil is used in many of our foods as it provides a longer shelf life for many products. Nutella was recently the subject of a scandal when a rival chocolate spread company set out an advertising campaign claiming that Nutella could cause cancer. The advertising was pulled, but researchers have recently found a link between palm oil and cancer.