The genocide of our closest living relatives will soon come to an end.  How it ends depends entirely on us humans.  Ending on a good note means illegal logging, poaching, retaliatory killing, and animal trafficking will be halted in the only place in the world where these omnivorous animals live: the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.  However, if these activities cannot be stopped, some say orangutans, which share 97% of human genetics, may be extinct in the wild within as few as two years.

Photo credit: Hardi Baktiantoro

http://bushwarriors.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/orangutan-genocide-how-much-time-is-left-for-these-primates/

14/08/2010
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Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com

August 12, 2010

Orangutan encounter rates have fallen six-fold in Borneo over the past
150 years, report researchers writing in the journal PLoS One
<http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012042>
.

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.

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0812-orangutans.html

12/08/2010
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Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com
August 12, 2010

A new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B finds that forests which have undergone logging in the past, sometimes even twice, retain significant levels of biodiversity in Borneo. The researchers say these findings should push conservationists to protect more logged forests from being converted into oil palm plantations where biodiversity levels drop considerably and endangered species are almost wholly absent. Given that much of Borneo's forests have been logged as least once, these long-dismissed forests could become a new frontier for conservationists.

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0812-hance_logged_borneo.html

12/08/2010
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"I heard a rustling in a tree near, and, looking up, saw a large red-haired animal moving slowly along, hanging from the branches by its arms. It passed on from tree to tree until it was lost in the jungle, which was so swampy that I could not follow it."

These are the words of the great naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace, describing how he caught sight of his very first orangutan. Around two weeks later, Wallace found his second individual and, as you would expect for a 19^th century British explorer, he shot it dead.

During his fifteen-month stay in Borneo, Wallace ‘collected' a further 28 orangutans and his tales of slaughter and science are vividly described in his famous tome, The Malay Archipelago (immortalised here by Google).

Wallace wasn't the only explorer to shoot his way through Borneo's orangutan population. Odoardo Beccari shot or saw at least 26 individuals in just over 5 weeks, while Emil Selenka collected around four hundred specimens over four years. All of these records attest to the fact that orangutans were relatively common in the late 19^th century, such that zealous Europeans had no problems in finding them.

The same can't be said now. Field scientists working in Borneo rarely see a wild orangutan and when they do, they're usually alone or in very small groups. You can travel down the very rivers where naturalists once described seeing orangutans many times in the same day, and find only nests.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/08/12/expedition-records-show-severe-orangutan-decline/

12/08/2010
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By MATT CAMPBELL

The Kansas City Star

A male chimpanzee at the Kansas City Zoo died Wednesday after being placed in a group with other males the day before.

There had been some scuffling among the powerful primates, and Josh, who was nearly 21 years old, had some scrapes on his hand, but there was no indication of traumatic injury, zoo Director Randy Wisthoff said Thursday. A necropsy was performed, and tissue samples were sent to laboratories to determine the cause of death.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/12/2146636_chimpanzee-at-kc-zoo-dies-after.html#ixzz0xMHykGbs

12/08/2010
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Jakarta, 9 August 2010

Press Release

ProFauna Urges the Indonesian Government

To Stop the Deforestation in Kapuas, West Kalimantan

Deforestation of natural forests in Kalimantan or Borneo Island keeps
happening and threatening the wildlife and local people. A logging
company, PT. Toras Banua Sukses has received a renewal permit to
operate in Kapuas forest which threats the habitats and survival of
some endangered wildlife including: Orang utans, proboscis monkeys,
and sun bears, and also causes disputes to the local tribal people who
depend their livelihood on the forest. For these reasons, ProFauna is
campaigning against the operation and urging the government to stop
the deforestation.

09/08/2010
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