The Bornean Orangutan Has Just Been Labelled Critically Endangered & This Charity Is Doing All It Can To Save Them!

The charismatic Bornean orangutan has just been declared ‘critically endangered’ by the IUCN Red List  of Threatened Species. This means that “it is considered to be facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild,” another stark reminder that we –humans– need to change the way that we live on this planet.

The reclassification from ‘endangered’ has publicly and irrefutably confirmed that the Bornean orangutan, one of only two orangutan species , is one step closer to being completely eradicated. At this time, the population is considered to be severely fragmented and decreasing. The IUCN estimates that there are only 104,700 individuals left in the wild today, as opposed to the 288,500 in 1973. Projections suggest that in less than ten years’ time there will only be a meager 47,000 Bornean orangutans left struggling to survive.

Alan Knight OBE is the Chief Executive Officer of International Animal Rescue , an organisation working in West Kalimantan, Borneo to rescue and care for orangutans. He isn’t shocked by the news, “It’s only been a matter of time! The Bornean orangutan is under huge pressure. I have just returned from Borneo and our rescue center is running at full speed to rescue orangutans from destroyed forest.”

The biggest threat facing the orangutans is man. Forest clearing and land burning (primarily for the palm oil industry), as well as hunting and the illicit pet trade are all directly leading to this species’ decline. The babies that International Animal Rescue cares for “have been taken from their mothers to be illegally sold as pets,” and the charity also provides aid for “adults that have spent their entire lives in captivity, chained up or imprisoned in tiny cages.”

According to the charity’s official statement , “This reclassification shows the severe impact that these issues are having on this species as a whole.”

But all is not lost. Just this week, International Animal Rescue released the encouraging news that three of its rescued orangutans have been successfully returned to the rainforest  in the Bukit Baka Bukit National Park.

Two of the orangutans were orphans rescued by the charity’s human-orangutan conflict team and had been found in areas of forest that were cleared for palm oil plantations. They were so young at the time, they’d had to learn how to be orangutans. The third orangutan, an adult male, had been found wandering alone on a village plantation, searching for food after his forest home had been destroyed by fire.

These types of rescue are sadly becoming all the more common for the charity as the rate at which forests are being torn down increases. The charity is currently caring for more than 100 orangutans at its center and is still rescuing orangutans left to starve and die as a result of last year’s tragic Borneo forest fires , which occurred during a long, dry season caused by El Niño. 

Now that the Bornean orangutan has been formally recognized as critically endangered, perhaps the tide will start to turn for this amazing species. 

Karmele Llano Sanchez, Program Director for International Animal Rescue’s project in Indonesia, has said as part of the charity’s statement , that this will happen “only if people are more concerned about orangutans... and even now, I fear it’s almost too late.”

Please help to spread the word about the plight that Bornean orangutans are facing, avoid buying products that contain palm oil (there’s a lot of them out there – see here ), and donate to International Animal Rescue to help the team care for all of the rescued orangutans – they can’t do it without you!