Hundreds of Orangutans Killed Annually for Meat
Villagers hunting endangered ape to extinction in Indonesian region, study says.
Hundreds of the big apes are hunted annually for meat or to eliminate threats to crops in the country's Kalimantan region (map) on the island of Borneo, according to a survey of 7,000 local villagers.
The survey results suggest that between 750 and 1,790 Bornean orangutans are killed each year in Kalimantan—"high enough to pose a serious threat to the continued existence of orangutans in Kalimantan," according to the study.
There are two distinct species of orangutan, the Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan. While both species are considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the new study deals with only Bornean orangutans living in Kalimantan.
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