Friday, June 17, 2005

Orang-utans killed for illegal trade

Quote:

Around 1000 orang-utans are being killed each year so that their babies can be traded as pets, leaving the primate species on the brink of survival, the WWF warns in a new report.The orang-utan - meaning “man of the forest” in Malay - is native to the tropical rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo. They are already under severe threat due to intensive logging of their habitat - over 90% of the species were wiped out during the last century... It has been illegal to hunt or trade in orang-utans since 1931, but the study by WWF and TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, discovered that fewer than 10% of people found in illegal possession of the apes were prosecuted.

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