Orang Utan - Jersey Zoo 01

Orang Utan (just hanging on) - Jersey Zoo 02

Orang Utan - Jersey Zoo 03

Orang Utan - Jersey Zoo 04

Orang Utan

Pongo pygmaeus

• RANGE: North-west Sumatra Central and North-east Borneo

• HABITAT: Rain Forest

• SIZE: 5-6 feet

• DIET: Fruit, vegetables, termites occasionally small animals e.g. squirrels

• CONSERVATION STATUS: Endangered. Estimates vary about numbers in the wild however it is estimated that in the last twenty years numbers have halved. Nowadays the major reason for their disappearance is the destruction of their habitat. The original vast areas of rainforest have been systematically destroyed and converted to fields and plantations. Trees have been cut down to make western hardwood furniture.

• NOTES: The name means "Old man of the woods". No tail. Orang-utans are the largest animals living in trees. There is a difference between male Orang-utans from Borneo and Sumatra - the former have much larger fleshy "cheeks" There is an interval of eight years between offspring of a female Orang-utan which increases their vulnerability to extinction in the wild.

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"The world population of orang-utans is down to (let's be generous about it) ten thousand. With human births rising at the present rate, all the forests that house them will be chopped down and turned into farmland that will soon be desert, all the trees will be processed for one reason or another, generally to print lies on, so where will your orang-utans live? "If they exist at all, they'll exist in places like this. And if they don't continue to exist we won't. We won't because human beings are wild animals. We all make a whole, we're all parts of a jigsaw. We men have chosen to pull ourselves out of the puzzle in order to pretend that we're God, we're strutting and fretting on our little stage for the moment, but we're already running into trouble, trouble that can't be measured with our little brains. You only have to open your eyes to see that what any intelligent conservationist has been preaching for years (and years and years and years and years) is now coming to pass - and everyone said they were alarmist. You cannot drag yourself out of nature like this."   © Gerald Durrell

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