OrangUtan

I remember when I was child, my parents used to take me to the Ragunan zoo (lucky me, not so far from my house) together with my bro n sis, cousins or my some neighbors. I always love it, to see all kinds or animals. I growth in a house with lots of plants and animals, like chicken, fishes, duck, swan, birds, Yakop (my cockatoo that loves to shout out every time..miss u..) , turtles (I have 13 in my home), cat (jeliteng, siti, lagi ngapain yah..). All these things make me likes animals and realize that we have so many kinds of interesting living creature in the world (alahhh..). By knowing kinds of animals, it makes me realize that my country Indonesia has sooooooooo many kinds of animals/fauna.

One of my favorite animal that I can see in that zoo is (mostly in almost all zoo in Indonesia) is orangutan.. wanna take their pics so much.. I will tell you a little bit about orangutan here. This creature always catch my interest, even I was thinking to have one in my house, but I think it would be not possible, and the reason you will see later.

Talking about my lovely country, Indonesia,…..
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a country comprise around 17,000 island that make it as the largest archipelagic country in the world. The five largest islands are Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo), New Guinea (shared with Papua New Guinea), and Sulawesi. Indonesia has tropical climate, with forest almost covers 60% of the country, and its flora and fauna is a mixture of Asian and Australasian species. Sumatra and Kalimantan (Borneo) are predominantly of Asian species.

Orangutan is one of the Asian fauna species in Indonesia. Wikipedia says orangutan is a species of great apes known for their intelligence, long arms and reddish-brown hair. In fact, the name orangutan comes from “orang” = person/man and “utan/hutan” = forest, so orang utan means “man of the forest”. I think orang utan is very clever as an apes..;P Orangutans are native animal to Indonesia and Malaysia, they are currently found only in rainforest on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. They spend most of their time in trees, moving from tree to tree by climbing and or swinging.
Their hands are twice longer than their legs and allow them to move about in the rainforest canopy with ease, or to hang from branches eating fruit and leaves. Some might say orangutans have four hands instead of two hands and two feet. Females orang utan can grow to around 127 centimetres and weight 45 kg, adult males can reach 175 centimetres in height and weight over 118 kg. They live solitary, particularly for adults male who only associate with others during mating, which happens throughout the year…(haha!). The average lifes for an orangutan is 30 years, and maturity is reached at seven to 10 years of age. Females typically give birth one baby and always take care of their young until up to six years..good mother huh!.

When I came to zoo or national park in Indonesia, I like to see orangutan acting like a man or human. how they act, drink, eat, just similar like us. We can play with them, they are so friendly as long as you do not disturb them, but be careful they like to grab foods from our hands. As mentioned before, orangutan known for its intelligence. Recent research by the psychologist Robert Deaner and his colleagues, orangutans are the world’s most intelligent animal other than humans, with higher learning and problem solving ability than chimpanzees. Another research found that they are capable of tasks well beyond chimpanzees’ abilities such as using leaves to make rain hats and leakproof roofs over their sleeping nests….so clever isn’t it?? Well no need feel treated by them, coz’ they are so smart..;P I wish I had one in my home..;P must be very fun playing with them.

How many numbers of orangutan that still exist in the world??? Orangutans spent most of their time living alone in tree, since that it makes difficult to calculate the number of orangutans in the world. From the source that I got from WWF, suggest that less than 30,000 orangutans exist in the world today (what small amount I guess..). The largest amount of them are found in Borneo island (about 24,000) with very small amount in Sumatra. It is reported that over the past 100 years orangutans have lost 91% of their population… (what a sad..!!!).

According to IUCN Red List, orangutan status is critically endangered and listed as Appendix I of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), means these species are threatened with extinction and are or may be affected by trade. The sharp decreasing number of orangutan in the world has occurred mostly due to human activities and development. Do you think human and orangutan can live side by side?? I bet it is hardly to do.

In the last 20 years about 80% of orangutans’ habitat has disappeared and 2% of remains is legally protected. This all because of commercial logging, clearance for agriculture, and conversion to plantations. WWF’s Indonesia Progamme estimates that in 1997 around 10 million hectares of land were burned in Indonesia. When areas of forest are destroyed, orangutans lose both their home and source of food. There is also problem with hunting and illegal pet trade that makes orangutan are starting to disappear. So having orangutan as pet in home is illegal!!! That’s why I can’t have it in my home… Orangutan are often killed for their meat, their slow movements make them easy targets…When adult females are killed, the babies can be sold, and the skulls of the dead may be used to create souvenirs that are sold illegally throughout Borneo (hate it so much, cruel human!!!).

Due to all these, many conservations are built to protect the live of orangutans. Major conservation centers in Indonesia include those at Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Borneo, Kutai in East Borneo, Gunung Palung National Park in West Borneo, and Bukit Lawang in the Gunung Leuser National Park on the border of Aceh and North Sumatra. In Malaysia, conservation areas include Semenggoh Wildlife Center in and Matang Wildlife Center in Sarawak, and the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary near Sandakan in Sabah. My question is, if there are many conservation and ways to protect orangutans, but why the population keep decreasing??? Maybe we need to ask ourself (especially us, Indonesian..) what things that we should or avoid to protect and keep this cute, clever mammals exist in this world. I hope I still can see them in the zoo or much better in wildlife.

Orangutans are one of the most critically endangered of the great apes, due to poaching and habitat loss. Based on the World Bank’s estimation that mechanized logging in the Kalimantan forest, (Indonesian Borneo), will result in its total loss by 2010, and other statistics stating that wild orangutans are disappearing at a rate of 2,000 orangutans per year, optimistic predictions give the orangutan ten more years before extinction in the wild (Hooper 2002).

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