This is no cheeky monkey, this is an ape and they love to be played around with. The word Orangutan actually means ‘Person of the forest’. They live in jungles in Asia on the Islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
Because of the destruction of their habitat, many orangutans are orphans.
These orangutans go to an orpanage until they turn 8 where they will learn skills like jumping from tree to tree. But where are their mums? For a long time the jungles have been bulldozed over for timber. But in recent decades the problem has got a lot worse because the land is being totally cleared to make way for palm oil plantations. Palm oil can be found in many supermarket products but you cant easily tell which products have it. They usually say vegitable oil instead. Millions of hecteres of the Orangutan’s habitat has now been destroyed. Now the orangutans are close to extinction.
There is some good news however – researchers found the apes cope okay in damaged forests as long as there’s some trees and food for them. But I still think it is a really big problem.
STOP HURTING THE ORANGUTANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By Luca
