New orangutan population found in Indonesia

[Akoto]

Source: Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Conservationists have discovered a new population of orangutans in a remote, mountainous corner of Indonesia — perhaps as many as 2,000 — giving a rare boost to one of the world's most endangered great apes.

A team surveying forests nestled between jagged, limestone cliffs on the eastern edge of Borneo island counted 219 orangutan nests, indicating a "substantial" number of the animals, said Erik Meijaard, a senior ecologist at the U.S.-based The Nature Conservancy.

--snip--

Birute Mary Galdikas, a Canadian scientist who has spent nearly four decades studying orangutans in the wild, said most of the remaining populations are small and scattered, which make them especially vulnerable to extinction.

"So yes, finding a population that science did not know about is significant, especially one of this size," she said, noting that those found on the eastern part of the island represent a rare subspecies, the black Borneon orangutan, or Pongo pygmaeus morio.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jh27AL42OQp_0TiIaZvwQy040QNgD97GS4SG0

[DFW]

1. Good to hear, but..

I hope the publication of the news is not a signal to go capture half of them for zoos and add this
group to the "perilously endangered" list. I'd have been of half a mind to shut up about the discovery.

[Akoto]

2. Part of me also wishes they'd never been revealed, BUT ...

They're not far from palm oil harvesting, and they live among desirable wood. So, maybe knowing they're around will have some small impact in protecting their habitat.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. True, but if they don't bring attention to them there's a strong chance they'd lose their habitat

Perhaps now they can protect the area from the growing palm oil industry that's eating up the forest in that region.


Edit: spelling

[DFW]

4. That makes sense enough

I didn't know how isolated their habitat was, or what industrial concerns were encroaching (or threatening to).

[mopinko]

10. what zoos are still doing that?

i live in the land of very good zoos which don't do stuff like that any more. i don't mean to sound naive. i just mean, which zoos would do that in this day and age?

[Judi Lynn]

11. Same reaction here, as well. Very pronounced anxiety about their future.

Helpless creatures haven't fared very well on this planet.

[The2ndWheel]

5. Sucks for the orangutans

[Aragorn]

6. panucopia

In the spirit of the second Foundation trilogy: They moved there.

[pitchforksandtorches]

7. Don't get excited -they are just the Republicans who left Wash. D.C.

and found a fitting new home.

[Lorien]

8. You shouldn't insult orangutans like that. nt

[tomm2thumbs]

9. our world is quite a wonder - hope we can continue to protect it more and more, not less & less

all these years and just now discovered - wow

[L. Coyote]

12. There still are wild places, especially where nestled between jagged, limestone cliffs

and in karstic areas, with extensive 3-D underground and below surface topography and hydrology.

Oh, to be a young explorer even today .....

[Akoto]

13. I feel the same way.

I'm only 24, but I'm far too disabled to get out there. If I had a better body than I do, I'd love to travel afar and explore the world's hidden little nooks. We think we know it all, but there's still a lot to be seen! :)

An explorer in spirit, I guess.

[L. Coyote]

14. I'm an avid Google Earth explorer now!

It is fun to go back in a new visual media
to the land of jagged limestone cliffs where
I found new species during youthful botanical adventures.
I see roads where once men and mules alike cargoed, and I backpacked.
The 'glass bottled coca cola by the case case' porter's job has been outsourced to Toyota.
As we now fly through cyberspace, I must sat, "The times are changing very fast."