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Her orange fur and her round face make orang-utan unmistakable. The only natural home of se peaceful apes: rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, two of thousands islands of Indonesian and Malaysian archipelago in Souast Asia.
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The fact that orang-utan is at risk is not news. But new figures, which researchers have now published in Science magazine Current Biology (Voigt/Wich et al., 2018), show: The Situation of apes, which are among closest living relatives of man, is dramatic. More than half of orang-utan population on Borneo, which has already shrunk for decades, has refore disappeared in last 16 years alone. Between 1999 and 2015, number of animals decreased by 150,000. No more than 50,000 to 100,000 orangutans are left on Borneo, appreciate zoologists and ecologists who have raised numbers. The surviving animals live in narrow strips and patches of forest that are left on islands.
The causes: deforestation, palm oil cultivation and poaching Indonesia-Researchers discover new orang-utan art The new species called Tapanuli-orangutan lives in north of Indonesian island of Sumatra. M It is now considered to be rarest ape species in world for around 800 animals. © Photo: Andrew Walmsley/Handout via Reuters
Man himself is one who destroys habitat of orangutans most. He has destroyed almost entire rainforest on Sumatra – in Borneo, more than half of forests are lost due to deforestation and forest fires. Orangutans live on trees, build nests in crowns, eat leaves and fruits. Without forest, se primates, whose name means “Forest man” in native language of indigenous peoples, cannot survive. By way, y are not only animals affected by species extinction on islands of Borneo and Sumatra, in whose special ecosystem of peat bog forests, swamps and sea coasts many rare species have ir homeland.
Series species protection The last of ir kind
What researchers have long warned about, Living Planet Report 2016 has recently proven: world loses its animals, ir plants, ir nature. Many habitats have disappeared within decades or have lost significantly in quality. Within about 40 years, herds of vertebrates have more than halved on average, each year re were two percent fewer animals. And extinction of species continues. Many animals disappear from planet even before most people know about ir existence. To honor m, time online in series presents last of ir kind to some of se endangered beings.
The decline of orangutans has above all not natural causes, says also coauthor of study, Maria Voigt of German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig. So most of monkeys were eir killed by poachers or because y lost ir habitat. Orangutans are partly shot by peasants because y eat fruits of fields, but some of apes are also illegally kept as pets and even smuggled. Hundreds of orphaned orangutans, whose mors or families were killed, also live in several protection stations on Borneo and Sumatra. As socially organized apes, orang-utans are dependent on association of ir community for survival.
