London, April 13 : Conservationists have recently discovered a new population of orangutans in a remote area of Indonesia, giving a rare boost to one of the world’s most endangered great apes.
A team surveying mountainous forests in eastern Borneo counted 219 orangutan nests, indicating a “substantial” number of the animals, Erik Meijaard, of the US-based charity The Nature Conservancy, told the Guardian.
“We can’t say for sure how many,” he said, but even the most cautious estimate would indicate “several hundred at least, maybe 1,000 or 2,000 even”.