Heartbreaking photos show orangutans struggling to survive due to deforestation and poaching
- Orangutans are struggling as massive amounts of rainforest in Southeast Asia are burned off, or chopped down, to make way for palm oil.
- Along with habitat loss, the intelligent and slow-moving great apes have to deal with poachers and locals who eat them or keep them as pets.
- There are as many as 100,000 wild orangutans left in Borneo, and less than 14,000 in Sumatra.
- They only have children once every eight or nine years, and scientists fear extinction looms for those in Sumatra.
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Orangutans in Sumatra could be the first great ape to go extinct.
The red-furred, long-armed ape that shares 97% of the same DNA as humans are only found in the wild in Southeast Asia. As they're poached, and the rainforest is decimated to make space for palm oil, their future is uncertain.
There are still thousands of wild orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra, as many as 100,000 in the former and less than 14,000 in the latter. But they only bear offspring once every eight or nine years. It's one of the slowest birthing periods of any animal, and, according to The New York Times, "scientists fear that the population is in a death spiral."
Orangutans are smart. In 2010, Executive Director of the Orangutan Land Trust Michelle Desilets told Monga Bay News, "if you give a chimpanzee a screwdriver, he'll break it; if you give a gorilla a screwdriver, he'll toss it over his shoulder; but if you give an orangutan a screwdriver, he'll open up his cage and walk away."
But smarts alone aren't enough. They rely on rainforests for survival and spend about 95% of their lives in trees. As the rainforest is decimated, so is their future.
Here's what life is like for wild orangutans, in photos.
For thousands of years, orangutans lived relatively untouched in dense, green rainforest in Southeast Asia. Their name is an old Malay saying that means "people of the forest."
Sources: The Guardian, The New Yorker
They spend almost all of their slow, solitary lives in trees. They rely heavily on their surroundings.
Sources: The Guardian, The New Yorker
They eat leaves off trees, as well as termites, and fruit.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Wild orangutans can only be found in Borneo and Sumatra, Indonesia. The two main types have been separated for so long they're seen as different species.
Sumatran orangutans have lighter fur and are less bulky. They spend more time in trees.
A third type, with frizzier hair and a smaller head, was discovered in Indonesia in 2017. At the time of discovery, there were only about 800 of them still alive.
Orangutans' DNA is 97% the same as human DNA. This isn't a human child's X-ray. It's a young orangutan.
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, The Guardian
Orangutans are typically gentle creatures, especially when they're young. In comparison to chimpanzees, they're introverted.
Source: The New York Times
They are often noticed for their eyes. Photographer Alain Schroeder, who documented orangutans for six months, told CNN, "When you look at them in the eyes, it's like your brother."
Source: CNN
They've been, and still are, kept in zoos around the world.
Source: Slate
Some have displayed very human habits. This orangutan named Tori smoked while living in an Indonesian zoo after she learned the habit from picking up cigarettes people threw into her cage.
Source: New York Post
Their human-like tendencies have been used for entertainment, like this orangutan cycling with a cigar in 1926. They've also been the inspiration for actors playing apes in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes."
Source: The Atlantic
Another orangutan named Manis was an actor who stole the show from Clint Eastwood in the film "Every Which Way But Loose."
Source: Telegraph
Studies of orangutans began most famously with Lithuanian primatologist Dr. Birute Mary Galdikas. When she arrived in Borneo in 1971, she wrote it "was almost a Garden of Eden, the most remote place on earth."
Source: The New York Times
Even then they were hunted by poachers and had to deal with deforestation, but Galdikas later wrote that "it was all relatively small-time."
Source: The New York Times
Scientists have discovered orangutans were intelligent. Over their 50-year life spans, they use tools, like sticks to find ants, or leaves to make hats and umbrellas.
Sources: The New York Times, The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker
They can also learn basic forms of sign language.
There are noticeable differences between the sexes. For instance, male orangutans get hairier, and some develop throat pouches reminiscent of a double chin.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
Adult males grow up to five feet tall and can weigh up to 300 pounds. They can be violent and unpredictable. Females get up to four feet tall, but nowhere near as heavy.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
Even as more was discovered about orangutans, their livelihoods were increasingly threatened. In the 1960s, logging became more common in Southeast Asia.
Sources: The New York Times, The New York Times, The Guardian
Because they rely so heavily on the forest, its destruction means their destruction.
Sources: The New York Times, The New York Times, The Guardian
In 1997, an El Nino drought caused a forest fire over 25 million acres in Indonesia that killed thousands of orangutans.
Source: The New York Times
By the end of the 20th century, scientists estimated there were about 300,000 wild orangutans left. Even then, Galdikas warned they were poised on the "edge of extinction."
Sources: The New Yorker, The New York Times
Conservationists have been doing their best to help. Here, a ranger feeds a young orangutan named Elaine at a forest reserve in Jantho, Indonesia.
Source: CNN
Rehabilitation centers, like this one that was opened in 1964, rescue orphaned or abandoned orangutans and teaches them to fend for themselves.
Source: Orangutan Appeal
Veterinarians can tend to their injuries, like for this three-month-old named Brenda, who had a broken arm in 2019.
Orangutans that get marooned in plantations are caught and later released back into forests.
Source: CNN
But orangutans can't rely on a few willing shoulders alone. They face too many threats.
Poaching remains a big one. In 2013, a report found orangutans were the most-poached great ape. More than 1,000 were poached between 2005 and 2011, almost double the number of chimpanzees, which were the second-most poached.
Source: BBC
Often, mother orangutans will be killed and the baby stolen. A baby orangutan can be sold for about $70, and will later be sold again for about $7,000 in animal black markets.
Sources: The New York Times, The New Yorker
Poaching has been going on for years. Here, two of six orangutans that were poached from Borneo were flown home in first class in 1990.
It's become easier as the major threats facing orangutans go hand in hand. With fewer trees, they're easier to capture. Here, 48 orangutans were flown back to Indonesia after being smuggled out in 2006.
Source: BBC
They're also kept as pets by locals. Some see owning a great ape as a status symbol, while other locals eat them.
Sources: BBC, Smithsonian
The biggest threat is habitat loss from deforestation. Borneo and Indonesia, or what used to be called "Emerald of the Equator," have some of the most untouched rainforests in the world, but massive amounts have been cleared for palm oil.
Source: The New York Times, The Orangutan Project
Palm oil is found in foods, like pizza and chocolate, and as well as bathroom products like shampoo and soap. Trees are logged or burned down, and swampland is drained so palm trees can be planted. The industry provides an income for locals.
Source: World Wildlife Fund, Smithsonian Magazine
The palm oil industry's damage to the rainforest has become more widely known. But it's a cheap oil that can be produced all year round and in so many products that it's not easy or simple to stop using.
Sources: National Geographic, The Guardian
In September 2019, a study found 39% of Borneo's forest loss between 2000 and 2018 was because of palm oil —2.4 million hectares out of the total loss of 6.3 million hectares.
Source: Reuters
Some orangutans die in forest-clearing fires, while others remain foraging in small pockets of trees. What's left for those that survive is often not enough to sustain them.
Source: The New York Times
In the last few years, orangutan's clashes with locals — the animals raid crops for food, — has been documented by the media. In particular, attacks on an orangutan called Hope, who was shot 74 times, blinded, and had her baby stolen from her, became a focal point.
Sources: The New York Times, BBC
In the West, orangutans with their red hair and long arms are a symbol of wildlife that's being destroyed. But for people living in these countries, trying to survive, they're nothing more than large pests.
Source: The New York Times
In 2018, a study was released that showed in Borneo, between 1999 to 2015, about 100,000 orangutans were killed.
Source: BBC
Estimates of how many are still alive vary. It's somewhere between 70,000 to 100,000 orangutans in Borneo, and less than 14,000 in Sumatra.
Sources: The New York Times, PBS, CNN
Another complicating factor comes as orangutans have children only one every eight or nine years, which is one of the longest gaps between births of any animal.
Sources: The New York Times, PBS, CNN
According to The New York Times, for those in Sumatra, "scientists fear that the population is in a death spiral."
Source: The New York Times
There is hope. In July 2019, a World Wide Fund for Nature report said numbers were stable in areas where the forest remained in Borneo, where palm oil was being harvested that numbers had fallen.
Source: Reuters
For now, they're gripping on. As long as some forest remains, orangutans can survive. But nothing's guaranteed.
Source: Reuters