Orang-utans 'may die out by 2025'

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3383425.stm

 

Last Updated: Monday, 12 January, 2004, 02:36 GMT

 

Orang-utans 'may die out by 2025'

 

By Alex Kirby

BBC News Online environment correspondent

 

The orang-utan, Asia's " wild man of the forests " ,

could disappear in just 20 years, a campaign group

believes.

WWF, the global environment network, says in the last

century the number of apes fell by 91% in Borneo and

Sumatra.

 

Globally, it says, there were thought to be somewhere

between 45,000 and 60,000 orang-utans as recently as

1987.

 

But by 2001 that number had fallen by virtually half,

to an estimated 25,000- 30,000 of the animals, more

than half of them living outside protected areas.

 

The apes, restricted to the islands of Borneo and

Sumatra, are regarded as two species, the Bornean

(Pongo pygmaeus) and the Sumatran orang-utan (Pongo

abelii).

 

Hesitant breeders

 

The Sumatran animal is classified as critically

endangered, with possibly no more than 9,000

specimens.

 

Across their range they are at risk because of the

fragmentation and destruction of the forests.

 

WWF says: " This is caused by commercial logging, and

clearance for oil palm plantations and agriculture.

Almost 80% of all forests in Malaysia and Indonesia

have now been logged.

 

" The apes are also threatened by hunting and poaching

for the bushmeat and pet trade, and by forest fires.

 

" Over 60% of orang-utans are living outside reserves,

and this catastrophic decline will continue until

conservation efforts are scaled up to tackle habitat

loss and poaching on privately-owned land. "

 

Female apes become fertile around the age of 12, and

can live for up to 40 years. But they have the slowest

reproductive cycle of all the great apes, averaging

eight years between births.

 

Domestic demand

 

Stuart Chapman, head of the species programme at

WWF-UK, told BBC News Online: " A mother can probably

bear four or five young and rear them successfully in

her entire lifetime.

 

" One study suggested the orang-utan could tolerate a

loss in numbers of about 2% annually. But this loss of

about 50% in just 15 years is completely

unsustainable, hence the urgency of the conservation

work.

 

" And for every orang that is caught and traded, we

estimate five or six more die and are never found. "

 

WWF says the international trade has declined sharply,

because of Taiwan's improved enforcement of its import

laws, but there is still demand in Indonesia for the

animals as pets.

 

 

 

 

 

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