Wild orangutans at Borneo National Park
Wild orangutans have little room left to maneuver. Their forest homes are shrinking at an alarming rate and their future is on the line. Orangutans are large red haired arboreal great apes. They can live up to the age of 50 years, and are regularly observed using objects in the forest for tools.
They are only found in natural rainforest habitats on the islands of Borneo, where they are classed as endangered, and on Sumatra, in Indonesia, where they are critically endangered. Estimates are that between 45,000 to 69,000 orangutans remain in all of Borneo and about 7,300 in Sumatra; but the figures are based on those collated over three years up to 2003, and scientists predict the numbers are in fact far lower. (EPA)
