1,000 orangutans disappear each year: Survey

1,000 orangutans disappear each year: Survey

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post/Medan

A survey by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP)
found at least 1,000 orangutans in North Sumatra and Aceh
provinces are disappearing each year due to poaching and loss of
habitat.

According to the SOCP, there are only about 7,518 orangutans,
55 percent of them adult males, remaining in Aceh and North
Sumatra provinces, from tens of thousands of orangutans in the
1980s. About 10 percent of the remaining orangutans are young
males and females still being nurtured by their mothers.

SOCP scientific director Ian Singleton expressed concern on
Saturday the wild orangutan population would continue to dwindle
due to the increased pace of forest destruction, particularly in
the Leuser ecosystem.

Singleton, a British national who has done extensive research
on orangutans in Sumatra, said that like any other animals, the
orangutan relied on the forest for survival.

"Orangutans prefer to dwell in forests 1,000 meters above sea
level because of the quality of fruits there," Singleton said.

In addition to forest destruction, rampant poaching is also a
contributing factor to the disappearance of the orangutan, he
said.

Singleton said that at the 21 orangutan location points in
Aceh and North Sumatra, many of the orangutan populations were
below 500. The smallest population is in Linge, western Aceh,
where the orangutan population is only eight. In Tapanuli, North
Sumatra, the population is 500.

He said that only the area of Aceh Singkil, along the western
and eastern parts of Leuser, had an orangutan population of over
1,000.

"We have been conducting surveys for the past 15 years to get
to these locations, at once inputting data on their populace.
This survey involves many foreign and local researchers, and from
the surveys, we conclude that each year at least 1,000 orangutans
vanish," Singleton told The Jakarta Post.

The outreach and education manager at the SOCP, Anna Pombo,
said her office was working to guarantee the continued existence
of orangutans in the wild.

Since its founding in 1999, the SOCP has established an
orangutan quarantine center in Sibolangit, North Sumatra, and a
reintroduction center in Bukit Tigapuluh, Jambi, Pombo said.

She said that in the last two years, the quarantine center had
handled 53 orangutans that were seized by the authorities or
entrusted to the center by various related agencies. As many as
36 of them have been sent to the reintroduction center in Jambi.

"This conservation program is part of our efforts to preserve
the orangutans and their habitat from threats of extinction. If
their population is not stabilized, we will lose them in a
decade's time," said Pombo.