The birth of a baby Sumatran orangutan at the El Paso Zoo could be one of the most important conservation achievements in the history of our Zoo. Many conservationists predict that if any of the five species of great apes become extinct in the wild during this century, it will be the Sumatran orangutan. The wild population has declined dramatically by more than 50 percent during the past few decades with an estimated wild population of only 7,300.
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| Ibu and Khaleesi during Ibu's first week as a new momma. |
Mankind may be one of the orangutans' closest relatives but humans are also the greatest threat to the orangutans' survival. Clear cutting, forest fires and hunting are reducing orangutan numbers to alarmingly low levels. Never before has their very existence been threatened so severely.
Orangutans used to live in many different parts of South East Asia, but the places where they can thrive and find food are quickly vanishing. In Borneo and Sumatra, their last remaining homes, large parts of the old growth rainforest are gone, ripped up for farmland, palm oil plantations and urban development. And the precious little forest that is left is disappearing rapidly as palm oil companies continue to illegally clear-cut enormous areas of forest.
Maintaining a breeding population in accredited zoos is an integral component to orangutan’s future survival because of the pressure on wild populations. The El Paso Zoo is one of 27 Association of Zoo and Aquarium (AZA) accredited institutions with Sumatran orangutans. Our female, named Ibu is one of only 12 females included in the current breeding recommendation of the AZA Species Survival Plan for this species.
It's common practice to burn the land before developing a palm oil plantation, and many of these planned fires have spread uncontrollably with devastating effects. Orangutans often die because they can't escape the flames. Trapped up in the forest canopy, they simply have nowhere to go.
Many orangutans are directly killed by the fires, but many others are killed by humans. Many of those that do escape the fires end up on plantations and in villages-- desperately looking for food and protection from the fires. Starving, tired, wounded or sick, many become easy prey for poachers who see an opportunity to make easy money by selling the meat from the adults. Mother orangutans are butchered and their babies are plucked off their dying bodies in order to be sold into the illegal pet trade.
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| Dr. Vikki rides with UTEP student researchers across a river in Indonesia. |
The El Paso Zoo has focused on Sumatran orangutan conservation efforts as one of its top priorities over the past 10 years with more than $10,000 in support from the El Paso Zoological Society Conservation Fund. These funds support programs in Indonesia both rescuing and relocating hundreds of injured, orphaned and displaced orangutans. In recent years we have expanded our conservation efforts to include: a breeding recommendation; more targeted education programs; the development of a palm oil smart phone app, and a partnership with UTEP, sending Zoo staff to Indonesia to assist with “hands on” orangutan conservation. Having a pregnancy and a successful parturition takes the El Paso Zoo to another level of positive conservation impact.
There are many underlying causes for the loss of habitat. It is a combination of economic pressure, greed and ignorance, and natural disasters-- all of which come as a result of mass deforestation. The population of Indonesia is growing at an astounding rate, and with more mouths to feed, forests are being replaced by farms. People and orangutans share the same space and in any conflict between humans and orangutans, the orangutans always lose.
