All About Orangutans!

Along with the bonobo, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla, the orangutan is remarkably similar to humans, in terms of anatomy, physiology, and behavior. Like the other great apes, orangutans are highly intelligent, as seen in their advanced tool use and distinct cultural patterns. Their native intelligence is often used to solve problems related to arboreal travel and food processing. However, their rainforest habitat is continuously being destroyed by illegal logging, mining, farming, and palm oil plantations. Despite formally protected status, the wild orangutan continues to be a critically endangered species and could soon become extinct in the wild. Experts predict wild orangutans could become extinct as natural populations in ten to twenty years.

Evolutionary Distinctiveness

Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae

The family Hominidae comprises seven living species in four genera: Homo (humans), Gorilla (gorillas), Pan (chimpanzees) and Pongo (orangutans). Apes are thought to have diverged from Old World monkeys between 22 and 30 million years ago (mya). They were confined to Africa until around 15-17 mya, when they colonised Eurasia across a newly formed land bridge between the two continents. Here they underwent rapid dispersal and diversification, with the evolution of many new species including the ancestors of modern orangutans.

This Eurasian ape radiation also includes the extinct genus Sivapithecus (formerly known as Ramapithecus), which was once thought to be one of the earliest human ancestors. Out of all the great apes, orangutans are the least closely related to humans, having split off from the early hominid lineage 10 to 12 million years ago. Gorillas were the next lineage to diverge, followed finally by the chimpanzee-bonobo lineage.

Description

Size: Head and body length: 1.25-1.50 mArm span: 2.25 m
Weight: Male: 50-90 kgFemale: 30-50 kg

The orangutan is the only great ape found outside Africa, and the largest arboreal mammal in the world. It has a coarse, shaggy reddish-brown coat, and long, powerful arms which can reach up to 2 m in length. Both the thumbs and the large toes are opposable, allowing the ape to grasp branches with both its hands and feet. The orangutan is highly sexually dimorphic, with males growing to about twice the size of females. When sexually mature, males develop flanges on either side of their faces, known as ‘cheekpads’.

These are deposits of subcutaneous fat bound by connective tissue. Adult males also develop throat sacs, which can be inflated to add resonance to the male’s loud ‘long-call’. The two species of orangutan differ slightly in appearance and behaviour. Sumatran orangutans tend to be lighter in colour and have longer fur around their faces than the Bornean species. Bornean orangutans have wider faces, particularly the males, which have wider cheek pads than their Sumatran relatives.

Ecology
Orangutans eat, sleep and travel in the trees. They are active during the day, and spend the majority of their time searching for and consuming food. Fruit such as figs, durians, jackfruit, lychees, mangosteens and mangos are eaten when available, along with smaller quantities of leaves, seeds, ants, termites and bark. Individuals tend to switch to eating these lower quality foods when fruit is scarce, rather than move to another area. In some areas over 400 different types of food have been recorded as part of the species’ diet. At night, individuals sleep in a nest made of twigs or leaves high up in the trees. They generally make a new nest each night, although old nests are occasionally re-used. Unlike other diurnal primates – which are social and gregarious – orangutans lead a semi-solitary lifestyle. This is thought to be primarily due to the scattered distribution of their food. There is generally not enough fruit in an area at any one time to support a large group of orangutans. Adult males of both species occupy large, overlapping home ranges, which encompass those of several females.

They spend almost all of their time alone, coming together with females only to mate. Although males are not territorial, they are generally hostile to one another. Confrontations are rare, as the male’s long-call is thought to serve to repel rivals, as well as advertise his availability to sexually receptive females. Female orangutans are slightly more social than the males. They maintain small, overlapping home ranges, and occasionally come together to feed when food is plentiful. Social behaviour has been observed more frequently in the Sumatran species. In particular, it coincides with the simultaneous (or “mast”) fruiting of fig trees, which does not occur in Borneo. Juvenile males and females of both species display the most social behaviour, and are often observed feeding, playing and travelling together in groups. The fact that Sumatran orangutans have more opportunity to come together to eat fruit that the Bornean species has enabled greater sociality among individuals.

This in turn has enabled them to learn tool-using behaviour from one another. Orangutans play an important role in their forest habitat; they act as seed dispersers and help to open up the forest canopy which allows light to reach the forest floor so that the forest can regenerate. The orangutan is the slowest breeding of all mammal species. Females reach sexual maturity at around 10-15 years of age, and generally give birth to a single young every 6-8 years thereafter, depending on the quality of the habitat. Infants are totally dependent on their mothers, and are carried constantly for the first two to three years of their lives. Weaning occurs at around 3.5 years, but the infant will remain close to its mother for at least another three years, learning the spatial and temporal patterns of fruiting in the forest.

When the young disperse, females usually set up a home range adjacent to their mothers, while males tend to travel further afield. Life expectancy in the wild is thought to be 45-50 years. The incredibly long inter-birth period means that a female orangutan can produce a maximum of four surviving young during her lifetime.

Habitat
Known from primary and secondary forest, typically in lowland dipterocarp, freshwater and peat swamp forests. Orangutans are rarely found above 1000 m.

Distribution
Fossil evidence indicates that orangutans once ranged throughout south-east Asia as far north as China. Today, they are only found in pockets of forests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. The Sumatran orangutan is restricted to remaining patches of rainforest in northern Sumatra. Most remaining populations occur in and around Gunung Leuser National Park near Aceh, a protected area around 9,460 km² in area. Populations of the Bornean orangutan are found in both Malaysian and Indonesian Borneo: P. p. pygmaeus (northwest Kalimantan to Sarawak), P. p. wurmbii (southwest Kalimantan) and P. p. morio (northeast Kalimantan to Sabah).

Population Estimate
Orangutan population sizes are difficult to estimate with precision. The most recent estimates of total surviving numbers for the Sumatran and Bornean orangutans are around 7,300 and 57,000 respectively.

Population Trend
Densities and population sizes are in decline across the species' range, and forest continues to be lost at a rapid rate.

Status
The Bornean orangutan is classified as Endangered (EN A2cd) on the 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The Sumatran orangutan is listed as Critically Endangered (CR A2bcd).

Threats
Orangutan populations have crashed during the past 200 years, as a result of deforestation of their habitat. Today the species continues to be threatened by habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation as a result of legal and illegal logging, forest fires, illegal gold mining, and conversion to agriculture, in particular oil palm plantations. The species’ highly arboreal lifestyle makes them particularly vulnerable to habitat fragmentation, as they rarely travel long distances on the ground.

More than 80% of orangutan habitat has been altered or destroyed by these factors. If this alarming rate of habitat loss continues then the orangutan may become extinct in the wild in as little as 10 years. Individuals that have lost their natural habitat sometimes enter oil palm estates, where they are often shot as pests. Mothers with babies are particularly vulnerable. They are often killed and the infants sold into the illegal pet trade. It is estimated that at least three orangutans are killed for each one that is captured and transported.

The species is also hunted for meat in some areas. With such a low reproductive rate, the orangutan is particularly vulnerable to these threats. Small, fragmented populations are at considerable risk. Many of the remaining populations, particularly in Sumatra number fewer than 250 individuals. These small, isolated populations do not have the capacity to recover from population declines. A slight rise in female mortality rate of just 1-2% can drive a local population to extinction.

Conservation Underway
Orangutans are protected by law in Malaysia and Indonesia, and listed on Appendix I of CITES, which prohibits international trade. However, weak law enforcement in both countries means that the species continues to be at risk from the above threats. Populations occur in a number of national parks and other protected areas, although illegal logging is still a problem in many of these areas. The Orangutan Conservation Forum is a consortium of groups working to stop illegal logging and hunting by patrolling protected areas, increasing sustainable economic alternatives for communities surrounding critical orangutan habitat, raising awareness, and releasing ex-captive orangutans into suitable protected habitat. There are currently three orangutan rehabilitation centres in Kalimantan, one in Sabah, one in Sarawak and one in Sumatra.

Hanging on - but just barely
Of approximately 11 million hectares of oil palm plantations globally, about 6 million hectares are found in Indonesia. in 2006) - and counting. But in many places, these plantations are taking over rainforests, the natural habitat of endangered species such as orangutans.
Habitat conversion from natural forests to oil palm plantations has been shown to have a devastating impact on tropical forests, along with plants and animals that depend on them. For example, there are nearly 80 mammal species in Malaysia's primary forests, just over 30 in disturbed forests, and only 11 or 12 in oil palm plantations. A similar loss in diversity occurs for insects, birds, reptiles, and most important of all, for soil microorganisms.About orangutans
Orangutans live on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo as 2 distinct species:

1-Sumatera orangutan
(Pongo abelii)

2-Borneo orangutan
(Pongo pygmaeus spp)

Scientists estimate that fewer than 60,000 orangutans remain in the wild on Borneo and Sumatra.The palm oil industry, which is causing clear-cutting of forests, forest fires, and also facilitates greater access for hunters and traders, is one of the most important factors for the dramatic reduction of orangutan populations.
What is the connection between orangutans and oil palm?
Orangutans live in areas that are favoured for establishing oil palm plantations: fertile lowland soils close to rivers.
The orangutans’ forest home is being converted into oil palm plantations at a massive scale. This conversion is being driven by growing global demand for palm oil, which is pushing up prices and hence encouraging the development of more plantations.
Impacts of oil palm development on orangutans
The development of oil palm plantations causes the fragmentation of forests, which reduces the natural habitat of orangutans. There are about 25,000 km2 of oil palm plantations in Borneo, and the area is ever increasing.
Where forests are being converted for oil palm plantations, poaching of orangutans for the illegal pet trade is more prevalent. This corresponds with reports from WWF and TRAFFIC that show an increase in the trade in baby orangutans over the past decade.
Forest fires are set deliberately to clear land for plantations. Not only do fires destroy vast areas of orangutan habitat, but thousands of these slow-moving apes are thought to have burned to death, unable to escape the flames.
In some areas of Borneo and Sumatra, orangutans are shot as pests by plantation owners or farmers.

OUR JOURNEY BEGINS

We've been waiting for you, we’re so glad you’ve returned,

Please help us before our jungle’s all burned.

Our time here unravels faster each day,

We’re becoming expendable and hunted prey.

But what can we do?………There’s not much more time,

Our forests breathe fires ignited by crime.

It’s easy to kill or kidnap us for cash,

Why must they reduce our forests to ash,

And cage every rare creature like yesterday’s trash?

Is anyone out there or does no one care?

The bribes nourish nothing but disgust and despair.

Pongo Pygmaeus may soon disappear,

From Sumatra and Borneo without even a tear.

No one seems interested in preserving our lands.

The Dow Jones has many invisible hands.

We can vanish in an instant before your eyes,

Faster than the echo of the jungle’s cries.

We pray you’re not readying your last goodbyes.

Please don’t abandon us USA,

Give us your hand or we’ll just fade away.

We’ll breathe our last breath if there’s much more delay.

Our ancestors were born very long ago,

Even before Krakatoa decided to grow.

We’re much older than you, why you’ve just arrived.

Why’s the world a hostage to the trivial and contrived?

Who gains from all these ritualistic confusions?

And who loses consenting to these perpetual delusions?

What's the world feel like for those so often left behind,

Besieged by malaria, dengue fever, contagious diseases and blind.

And ignored by too much of self-indulgent mankind?

The world looks very different from high in the trees,

So who's exactly wiser than all of the seas?

And kings look no different than anyone else in the crowd,

Who are they kidding pretending to be proud?

Must we choose between death or the bars of some zoo?

So we decided to leave, it was difficult to do!

Our wandering has taken us so very far,

To Tokyo, Toronto, Sydney, and Qatar,

Kirchdorf, Paris, Beijing, and Bangalore,

but we still need more time to play and explore,

Did you know we share similar DNA and much more?

We travel in ways you cannot understand

On virtual boulevards never planned,

To Belize and Belgium, England & Spain,

What happens if spring does not bring you rain

From the plains of Africa to the great Niagara Falls,

It's often easy to hear Dhyaksa’s distant calls.

He’s glided on powerful and gigantic wings,

Far into the future where there are no kings,

And visited time itself before you had genes,

while the centuries transformed earth's many shades of bluegreens.

We followed Gunito through monsoons for more than countless years,

Far into the distance where there are no fears.

And traveled the forests beyond the iridescent rainbows,

Successfully navigating tretcherous mountain snows.

To China, The Red Sea, and the sands of UAE,

There sure is an awful lot to see.

We live in your world but travel in ours,

We’ve already lived longer than some of the stars,

And traveled the rivers of your secret dreams,

As we sailed down an infinite number of streams.

And still we continue to Tokyo, Tunisia, & Mt. Everest,

Maybe we'll be able to visit the rest.

We have all the time and no time, do you understand?

Only you can invite us to visit your land.

But there are still many trees that we'd really wish to climb,

Will you give us that opportunity and plenty of time?

Hopefully we’ll meet you one of these days soon,

Just think of us every time you see the big Blue Moon,

Because we can never grow old .... and we’ll always be near,

You’ll know where to find us, if you wish us to stay here!

And if in the future we return to our trees,

With your great help we’ll experience our home’s tropical breeze,

Unless you tire to care and become bored to explore,

Then our jungle's shadow shall flee, and we'll be seen never more.

orangutan poem

The Endless Orangutan
Everyone is talking about

our health and wellness

as a society and where it

is running off too.

What about our political

government.

This endless orangutan

feces tossing match.

Dems vs. Repubs

facing off in a jungle

of 'factual commentary'

that are just worthless attacks.

Each side is far east and far west

there has got to be a way to compromise

to a middle ground and the first step

is that each party has to be truthful

and realize that all they are doing is

swimming in a sewer full of endless

meaningless speeches and attempts

to do something constructive.

Do something for the people for once

and not just for yourselves and your goddamn
ridiculously over privileged legacies.

ABOUT ORANGUTAN N SPECIES

Pontianak, Indonesia – Drastic habitat reduction, poaching and the illegal pet trade have left the world’s largest population of western Bornean orangutans facing local extinction unless immediate protection measures are taken, a WWF survey finds.The survey reveals that about 1,030 western Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) — out of an estimated population of 4,800 throughout Borneo — are found in and around Indonesia's Betung Kerihun National Park. "The western Bornean orangutan is the most threatened of the 3 Bornean orangutan subspecies to start with," said Albertus Tjiu, WWF-Indonesia's Species Officer in West Kalimantan."This orangutan population at Betung needs protection now to make sure it doesn't go extinct.” In addition, the survey reveals that a significant number of these western Bornean orangutans are found outside the park, particularly in forests used by the local population for various purposes, making those individuals especially vulnerable to exploitation and habitat loss.Specific actions to boost protection of this population includes the enforcement of a zero-hunting policy inside the park, increasing the size of protected forests in the Embaloh River watershed area and the creation of a transborder protected area.In particular, WWF and its partners are calling for the establishment of a forest corridor linking the 2 protected populations within Betung Kerihun and the neighboring park, Danau Sentarum, as a crucial action to secure the long-term survival of this subspecies in Borneo. These parks are located in the Heart of Borneo, a trans-boundary conservation initiative involving the governments of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia that that aims to conserve and sustainably manage one of the most important centres of biological diversity in the world“The Indonesian government is committed to the protection of the orangutan population and its habitat and will work with all stakeholders to create synergy for the effectiveness of orangutan conservation,” said Adi Susmianto, Indonesia Forestry Ministry's biodiversity conservation director.END NOTES:• The orangutan survey was conducted by WWF-Indonesia, together with Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry (PHKA), local NGOs and local villagers, with the technical assistance of the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project. The work included interviews with local villagers, map analysis, habitat assessment and a census along transects in the forest. • The Bornean orangutan is today recognized as a different species from its Sumatra relative. There are 3 subspecies of Boreneon orangutan: Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus, P.p. morio, and P. p. wurmbii. The first 2 are found in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, and Sarawak, Malaysia, and the last one is found in East Kalimantan and Sabah.• Located in West Kalimantan’s Kapuas Hulu district, Betung Kerihun National Park was declared a national park in 1995 and covers an area of approximately 800,000km2. The Danau Sentarum National Park, a huge wetland and swamp forest area, 60km south of Betung Kerihun, is home to a significant number of orangutans, but the general population appears to be highly fragmented and the forest are in very bad condition due to fires, agricultural development and illegal logging.

What’s so special about an orangutan?

Orangutans are with an ability to reason and think. This large, gentle red ape is one of our closest relatives, sharing 97% of the same DNA as humans. Indigenous peoples of Indonesia and Malaysia call this ape “Orang Hutan” literally translating into English as “People of the Forest.” In times past they would not kill them because they felt the orangutan was simply a person hiding in the trees, trying to avoid having to go to work or become a slave.


Orangutans are unique in the ape world. There are four kinds of great apes: gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans. Only the orangutan comes from Asia; the others all come from Africa. There are two separate species of orangutan – the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) and the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)



The orangutan is the only strictly arboreal ape and is actually the largest tree living mammal in the world. The rest of the apes do climb and build sleeping nests in the trees, but are primarily terrestrial (spending their lives on the ground). Even the hair color of the orangutan, a bright reddish brown, is unique in the ape world.
The orangutan has the most remarkable ability to travel through the forest treetops. They make their home in these trees and build nests each night out of leaves and branches in the very tops of the trees.

This is where they live and sleep – sometimes as much as 100 feet above the ground. The orangutan has little need to come down from the trees, as they are uniquely adapted for their arboreal lifestyle.

Orangutans have unique adaptations to their life in the treetops:
feet designed much like hands for climbing
flexible hips for holding on in any direction
long arms for reaching and long, strong hands and feet


Almost all of the food they eat grows in the treetops and the frequent rains fill the leaves thus supplying their drinking water. When water is difficult to get, they chew leaves to make a sponge to soak up water in tree cavities. When it rains very hard the orangutan makes an umbrella for himself out of big leaves. Many people are familiar with the studies that have shown chimpanzees using tools, such as termite-fishing sticks. Recent studies show that some populations of orangutans also fashion tools to aid in the difficult task of foraging for food.
Some might say orangutans have four hands instead of two hands and two feet. This makes them graceful and agile while climbing through the trees but it makes walking on the ground somewhat slow and awkward. That is why the orangutan is at a great disadvantage on the ground, and why the orangutan rarely comes down from the treetops. Their food is there, their home is there and they are safer there.
An orangutan’s lifespan is about 35-40 years in the wild, and sometimes into the 50’s in captivity. They reach puberty at about 8 years of age, but a female isn’t ready for her own baby until she’s in her teens.

The orangutan has the longest childhood dependence on the mother of any animal in the world, because there is so much for a young orangutan to learn in order to survive. The babies nurse until they are about six years of age. The young males may stay close by their mothers for a few more years but the females may stay until they are into their teens, allowing them to observe mothering skills as they watch their younger sibling being raised by the mother. Orangutan females only give birth about once every 8 years – the longest time between births of any mammal on earth. (This results in only 4 to 5 babies in her lifetime.) This is why orangutan populations are very slow to recover from disturbance.
Food is often scarce in the rain forest and that is why the orangutan is a semi-solitary creature. In times of great abundance of food, orangutans may use the opportunity to socialize and gather in small groups.

Their diet is made up of bark, leaves, flowers, a variety of insects, and most importantly, over 300 kinds of fruit. The mothers must teach the babies what food to eat, where to find that food, in which trees and during which seasons. It is thought that the orangutan must have a very detailed map of the forest in her mind, and detailed knowledge of the fruiting cycles of many species of trees. (This prevents wasting valuable energy searching for fruit trees randomly, and traveling to a certain fruiting tree whose fruits will not ripen for some time). The babies must eventually know hundreds of species of plants and trees, which ones are edible, and how to process them; some are very difficult to eat because they are protected by sharp spines and shells.


Unique features of male orangutans compared with females
Cheekpads
Large size (adult male in foreground, adult female in background)


Long, thick hair to make them appear even larger
Throat sac, used to vocalize

The throat sac is used to make a very notable and recognizable call that echoes through the forest. This is called the “Long Call” and is used to locate and advertise their presence to females or warn other males away.