Endangered species
> Orang-utan |
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| Orang-utan facts and key issues |
Key issues | Facts
Key Issues
- Habitat destruction and fragmentation is by far the greatest threat to the orang-utan. This is caused by commercial logging, and clearance for oil palm plantations and agriculture. Almost 80 per cent of all forests in Malaysia and Indonesia have been logged.
- Uncontrolled fires present another grave threat. WWF Indonesia estimates that nearly two million hectares of land were burnt in Indonesia in 1997. 160 companies were accused of involvement in the fires, but only 46 of these were investigated fully and just five are facing prosecution. Hundreds of orang-utans may have been burned to death, and other animals escaping the burning forests were sometimes killed by villagers.
- An estimated 1,000 orang-utans may have been illegally imported into Taiwan for the pet trade between 1995 and 1999. It is believed that five or six orang-utans die for every one that is traded. Although the international trade in orang-utans has declined sharply thanks to improved enforcement of import laws by Taiwan, in Indonesia there is still demand for the animals as pets.
Facts
- IUCN status categories:
- Bornean orang-utan (Pongo Pygmaeus) - endangered (2002 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) ;
- Sumatran orang-utan (Pongo abelii)- critically endangered.(2002 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species)
- In 1987, there were between 45,000 and 60,000 orang-utans in the world (Great Apes in the Wild:1997 - A WWF Species Status Report). In 2001 orang-utan numbers were estimated at between 25,000 and 30,000 (2002 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species).
- Weighing up to 90kg, the orang-utan is the largest tree-living mammal and the only great ape in Asia. Orang-utans inhabit tropical moist forests, from swamp and lowland forests at sea level to hill and montane forests, but they are rare above 1,000m.
- The lowland forest habitats of this red "man of the forest" are fast disappearing under the chainsaw, or being burned deliberately to make way for agriculture and oil palm plantations.
- Orang-utans are now found only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, although fossils indicate that they once ranged over much of South East Asia.
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WWF-UK > Research > Issues > Species > Orang-utan - Facts and key issues
