Wild world

Orangutans in Borneo

The Bornean orangutan is native to Borneo, and is slightly larger than the Sumatran Orangutan. According to the IUCN Red List, the Bornean orangutan is classified as endangered, with their total number thought to be less than 14 percent of what it was in the recent past (from around 10,000 years ago until the middle of the twentieth century). Their habitat has been so cut back that they are now only to be found in pockets of the rainforest that remains. The largest population left is loctaed in the forests surrounding the Sabangau River, which is under threat too. The IUCN estimate in 10 to 30 years orangutans will be extinct if there is no serious effort is made to eradicate the threats.

Complacency over deforestation pushes orang-utan closer to extinction (The Guardian 2011) Depsite all the promises, the destruction of Borneo’s rainforests continues at an alarming rate, where illegal logging, together with hunting, is driving species such as the orangutan nearer and nearer to extinction

Bornean Orangutan (Wikipedia – I’m really not sure about how update these figure are:

 The Bornean Orangutan is more common than the Sumatran, with about 45,000 individuals in the wild; there are only about 7,500 of the Sumatran species left in the wild. Orangutans are becoming increasingly endangered due to habitat destruction and the bushmeat trade,  and young orangutans are captured to be sold as pets, usually entailing the killing of their mothers.

The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation  Indonesian non-profit NGO devoted to the conservation of the endangered Bornean Orangutan and its habitat through the involvement of local people.

Orangutan populations collapse in pristine forest areas (2010)

Orangutan encounter rates have fallen six-fold in Borneo over the past 150 years, report researchers writing in the journal PLoS One. Erik Meijaard, an ecologist with People and Nature Consulting International, and colleagues compared present-day encounter rates with collection rates from naturalists working in the mid-19th Century. They found orangutans are much rarer today even in pristine forest areas. The results suggest hunting is taking a toll on orangutan populations.

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