Orangutan Conservation
During the last several decades orangutans, like many other animals, have become so endangered that they may now be teetering on the brink of total disappearance.
Photo: Magnus von Koeller Experts say that if no real action is taken urgently to help orangutans survive, they may only have years left to live.
They used to live throughout Southeast Asia but now inhabit only the islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
At the start of the 20th century in Borneo alone there were 225,000 orangutans. (2)
The estimates taken between 2000 and 2003 put the current population numbers of the Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) at around 45,000 – 69,000 individuals; as of 2008, these numbers would be much lower. (3)
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the Bornean species as endangered. (4)
The most recent 2004 estimate of populations of the Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) puts their numbers at around 7,300 individuals.
IUCN classifies the Sumatran species as critically endangered. (5)
So what has gone wrong for these animals and what can we do to protect them?
Again, as it is often the case with other endangered species, the major threats faced by orangutans are mostly those posed by their human counterparts.
We discuss these in detail below.
Threats Faced by Orangutans
Habitat Loss & Fragmentation
Habitat loss is certainly one of the main driving forces behind the recent decline in orangutan populations.
Orangutans need vast areas of forest to range, feed and reproduce. So even low rates of deforestation may affect their ability to do so according to their needs.
Jeffrey K. Mckee gives a good description of this situation: (6)
Orangutans don't travel much in a given day, but over the course of time they forage across vast expanses to find the scarce and unpredictable fruits they rely on.
Like early foraging humans in many ways, they are quite clever at finding their food. They use their learned knowledge of the forest to track potential food resources, and can deduce the location of food by watching the movements of other animals.
But their odd social structure is what really cramps their ability to survive in fragmented habitats. The males are quite solitary most of the time, excepting “long erotic treetop trysts” with the females when they breed. ... The territories of the males overlap, but the whole habitat must allow suitable space for all the males to range and find an accepting partner for the tryst.
Habitat fragmentation thus hinders mating. Even if the males locate willing mates, the orangutans' slow reproduction rate exacerbates their diminished potential for resilience.
Their plight becomes increasingly difficult as fragmentation also aggravates intraspecific conflict. Although aggressive encounters between males competing for a partner have always occurred in this species, albeit largely vocal aggression, the frequency and violence of such encounters has increased as the available ranges become smaller and smaller.
Oil palm plantations, forest fires and illegal logging are the major causes of orangutans' habitat destruction & fragmentation.
Oil Palm Plantations & Forest Fires
Oil Palm Plantation, Borneo The surge in the use of palm oil for anything from cooking to cosmetics to biofuels at the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century is a leading fundamental cause of the loss of orangutans' rainforest habitats.
Palm oil is produced from the fruit of oil palm trees mostly cultivated in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Oil palm plantations require large areas of suitable land which is always in scarce supply.
So rainforests are ruthlessly cleared to make space for these plantations.
The rates of rainforest clearance for these purposes are truly staggering.
For example, 87% (!) of all deforestation in Malaysia that took place between 1985 and 2000, was due to oil palm plantations. (7)
And the methods “the agents” of rainforest destruction are choosing are not particularly environmentally-friendly either.
Apparently, the most “practical” method is by fires (8) which are usually started by those interested in cleared land, ex. plantation owners.
You may have heard about severe Indonesian fires of 1997 – 1998 which, at the time, were exacerbated by unusually dry conditions in the region.
We now know that "Borneo's orangutan population was reduced by one-third in just one year, 1997, when almost 8,000 orangutans were either burned to death or were massacred when they tried to escape fires." (9)
Not even to mention the fact that fires contain a cocktail of toxins and are sources of air pollution which negatively affects human health as well.
Illegal Logging
Timber is a commodity that is in high international demand. This demand is driven by several growing economies, such as China.
Lowland dipterocarp forests which are preferred by Bornean orangutans are extremely valuable timber resources and are obviously targeted by illegal loggers.
As of 2007, illegal logging accounted for more than 73% of all logging in Indonesia, and orangutan habitat was being lost much faster than previously feared. (10)
Hunting & Pet Trade
Hunting is another real danger to orangutan survival.
People hunt these rainforest animals for bushmeat trade, use of their body parts for traditional medicine, for pet trade.
As for pet trade, mothers are killed in the wild for their infants which are then exported to other countries. Another problem is that when infants grow into wild adults and become unmanageable, they are given up by their owners and become totally homeless.
Below is one of the most shocking examples when a significant number of orangutans became innocent victims of pet trade: (11)
One of the most egregious episodes of ape-smuggling occurred in Taiwan during the late 1980s, when a popular Taiwanese television show featured a live orangutan as a main character.
The show led many viewers to want young orangutans as pets, and ape smugglers, with little to fear from Taiwan's poorly enforced wildlife protection laws, were happy to oblige.
As many as 1,000 orangutans may have illegally entered the country, and were subsequently sold through newspaper advertisements. That's the equivalent of 3 to 5 percent of the entire wild orangutan population. But the full toll was certainly far higher, since the capture of an infant primate invariably involves killing its mother, and many captured infants would have died in transit.
By the early 1990s, according to a recent World Wide Fund for Nature report, "the capital of Taiwan, Taipei, was reputed to have more orangutans per square kilometer than the species' natural habitat." Most of these orangutans have since been abandoned by their owners because they have matured and become unmanageable.
Spread of Viruses and Bacteria
As if they don't already have enough to deal with, orangutans' well-being may be further damaged by the spread of viruses and bacteria.
Biological similarities between orangutans and humans make it easy for orangutans to get infected with human diseases and then spread them among their species. This may particularly happen after orangutans' re-introduction into the wild as part of their rehabilitation programs. (12)
This threat to orangutans may be further exacerbated by global warming which creates even warmer, more favorable conditions for the spread of infectious diseases (13) (also see global warming effects).
Other Risks
The low levels of genetic variation as a result of fewer remaining numbers of orangutan populations may also possibly point to weaker chances of their survival in the future.
Another hurdle may be the fact that female orangutans have very long intervals between breeding sessions – on average, they deliver only once every eight years.
These factors make conservation efforts even more challenging.
Saving the Orangutans
It is, of course, important that we do everything we can to save these endangered animals.
Environmental activists have been working for years trying to find efficient ways of protecting orangutans from the threats that they face.
Photo: Iain Rendle There are national parks created by governments, and rehabilitation centers created by private citizens – true enthusiasts of the nature. All being done for one purpose – prevention of potential extinction of orangutans in the wild.
Theoretically, the real solution to this issue will only come when there will be no demand for the products extracted unsustainably from the rainforests – palm oil, timber, orangutans as pets etc.
But before this dream comes true, there are many things that we can do as individuals. For example, we could:
- boycott products containing palm oil (though it is not always easy because many retailers name it as simply “vegetable oil” in their ingredient lists)
- support charities which put pressure on governments to develop and enforce environmentally friendly policies
- promote ecotourism as a way to raise funds for orangutan protection
- educate our families and friends about orangutans and the environment in general
to name just a few.
I do hope that the humanity will come to its senses before all biodiversity is gone forever.
Last Update: February 2009
