Populations of all kinds of wildlife are declining at alarming speed. One radical solution is to produce 50% of the planet a nature reserveThe orangutan is one of our planet’s most distinctive and clever creatures. It has been observed using primitive tools,such as the branch of a tree, to hunt food, and is capable of complex social behaviour. Orangutans also played a special role in humanity’s own intellectual history when,in the 19th century, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, and co-developers of the theory of natural choice,used observations of them to hone their ideas approximately evolution.
But humanity has not repaid orangutans with kindness. The numbers of these distinctive, red-maned primates are now plummeting thanks to our destruction of their habitats and illegal hunting of the species. Last week, and an international study revealed that its population in Borneo,the animal’s last main stronghold, now stands at between 70000 and 100000, and less than half of what it was in 1995. “I expected to see a fairly steep decline,but I did not anticipate it would be this large,” said one of the study’s co-authors, or Serge Wich of Liverpool John Moores University.
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Source: guardian.co.uk