http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=624&
e=1&u=/ap/20030929/ap_on_sc/threatened_orangutans_1
Mon, Sep 29, 2003
Orangutans Could Go Extinct in 20 Years
[ Picture
from original article... ]
CAPTION:
"Orang-utan Tatum, 32, cradles her baby at Prigen Safari
Park
in Pasuruan, East Java.(AFP/File/Sophia Anada)"
WASHINGTON - Habitat
destruction by illegal loggers could mean the
extinction of orangutans within 10 to 20 years, a Harvard researcher
studying the apes said Monday.
Logging has been increasing
in recent years, moving away from the
river edges into the interior of the forests where the orangutans
live, Cheryl Knott said in a telephone interview.
Knott studies orangutans
in Indonesia's Gunung Palung National Park,
home to about 2,500 of the animals, about one-tenth of those in
the
world. Orangutans live only in Indonesia and Malaysia, said Knott,
whose work is sponsored by the National Geographic Society.
While the government
of Indonesia has a commitment to protect orangutans,
sending in national police periodically, the loggers return when
the
police leave, she said.
Knott said she hopes
to raise awareness internationally "that we really
do have a crisis here.... We could wake up in 20 years and they
would
be extinct."
Orangutans, like other
great apes, are close relatives to humans.
Researchers have learned a lot about them in recent years.
Knott said one colony
was observed to use primitive tools, a skill
passed on to their offspring. And she said the group she studies
makes unique sounds under some circumstances.
Orangutans are almost
totally arboreal, living in the trees, traveling
through the trees and eating fruit from the trees, she said.
She said several hundred
trees have been removed in her study area.
Loggers cut them into manageable logs with chain saws, drag those
logs to a nearby river and float them to market.
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