Orangutans will be extinct in 10 years if deforestation for palm oil continues, conservation expert warns
Bulldozers has cleared the forest around her — which had been teeming with life for thousands of years — in just a few days.
While most orangutans had run for the “hills,” Boon-Mee was “too weak and frightened to leave the trunk where she had sought sanctuary as the machines tore down her jungle home,” Mirror reports.
Boon-Mee was one of four orangutans left in the smoldering jungle, all rescued by the charity International Animal Rescue.
Another mother named Charanya with her baby clinging to her back desperately searching for food. Both were thin from malnutrition.
A third mother named Kalaya was semi-conscious and lactating, leading the rescue team to believe her baby either had been killed or taken as a pet.
‘We were appalled at the condition of these orangutans,” Karmele Llano Sanchez of IAR Indonesia told The Daily Mail.
“All of them had gone through long periods of starvation before we rescued them.”
‘The area where they were found was too small to provide them with sufficient food because the company had cleared most of the forest.”
All four orangutans have since been rehabilitated by International Rescue Agency and released into another chunk or rain forest, but the organization fears soon their won’t be any rain forest left to relocate them to.
“Orangutans will be extinct from the planet within 10 years unless action is taken to preserve forests in Indonesia and Malaysia where they live,” the charity has warned.
Both Bornean and Sumantran orangutans are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
There are only 40,000 orangutans left in the wild. Nearly 150,000 have been killed in the last 20 years.
““If the current destruction of the rain forest continues, I have absolutely no hope that any orangutans will remain in the wild,” said.Alan Knight, chief executive of International Animal Rescue.
Asked how long they might survive, Mr Knight said: “I would probably say 10 years if we cannot stop the destruction. I think the Sumatran will go before then if they don’t sort out the situation they are in.”
Source: Mirror / ReturntoNow