Conservation workers rescued an orang utan ensnared in rope and her baby on the island of Borneo where the critically endangered animals are at risk from boar traps and wildfires, an official said.
The female orang utan named Gadis, about 25 years old, and her son Garis, 10 months, were found snared in a suspected trap early Friday near a village in Central Kalimantan province on the Indonesian part of Borneo.
“Gadis was found with the ropes tied to her upper right arm and lower left arms, and the wounds were bad because the ropes had torn deep into her flesh,” local conservation official Muriansyah said yesterday.
“It looked like the ropes were set up as a wild boar snare trap,” added Muriansyah, who like many Indonesians has one name.
Both were receiving treatment at the Orangutan Foundation International clinic near the village of Pangkalan Bun.
Wild boar hunting using rope snares is legal and common in parts of Indonesia as a pest control measure to protect crops, but illegal inside protected forests or national parks.
Officials have repeatedly cautioned that careless placement of snares near wildlife areas could instead trap endangered sun bears or orang utan.
Dozens of orang utan have also been rescued in recent weeks from rampant wildfires burning across Indonesia that have cloaked the South-East Asian region in a toxic haze.
Two more were released in Ketapang, West Kalimantan on Saturday after being rescued from an oil palm plantation.
Orang utan are critically endangered and only about 120,000 remain in the wild in Borneo and Sumatra – about half the number from a century ago, according to conservation group WWF.
Last month, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said fires were burning in habitats containing 52% of Borneo’s orang utan population. — AFP
