Thursday, February 15, 2018

Borneo has lost half its orangutans due to hunting and habitat loss


'Their forests homes have been lost and degraded, and hunting threatens the existence of this magnificent great ape'

Borneo has lost more than 100,000 orangutans in the space of just 16 years as a result of hunting and habitat loss, according to a new report.

Logging, mining, oil palm, paper, and linked deforestation have been blamed for the the diminishing numbers.

However, researchers also found many orangutans have vanished from more intact, forested regions, suggesting that hunting and other direct conflict between orangutans and humans continues to be a chief threat to the species.

The report published in the Current Biology Journal found more than 100,000 of the island's orangutans vanished in the period of 1999 to 2015.

“Orangutans are disappearing at an alarming rate," said Emma Keller, agricultural commodities manager at the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).

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