The poor starving female that we tried to rescued died at midnight in the arms of our paramedic, two days after together with the forestry police rescued her from an oil palm plantation not too far from Pontianak. The autopsy revealed many grim details. She never had a chance. First we discovered that her skull had been crushed with a heavy object, probably an ironwood pole. We also noticed other bruises on her back and in her neck. From the way the skull was smashed it was clear that she was killed from behind, probably whilst trying to flee from her pursuers. But we also noticed that some of her lower teeth had broken off already before, something that never happens in the wild. Obviously she had been attacked before while trying to find food.
We looked at the satellite images around the location where she was attacked to see if we could understand why she would come out of the forest again to face such huge risks of people killing her. Then it became clear, very clear! A number of oil palm plantations had eaten away at the nearby peat swamp forest, the prime orangutan habitat. And the loss of forest was enormous, leaving only a small patch of peat swamp in the middle of a ring of oil palm plantations. That patch probably still has more starving orangutans in it. Our team lead by Dr. Vicktor will go and do a survey there as soon as we have the funds to organize the expedition.
We had not yet named the female that arrived unconsciously. She never woke up again and now from her remains we know why. The long starvation period, the vicious attack and the terrible suffering she must have endured. She was attacked by villagers when she entered the oil palm plantation of a private farmer, but the big loss of her habitat was caused by companies that converted the vast majority of her forest in oil palm plantations. Cheap plant oil for which she paid a heavy price.
We are all extremely sad that we lost her. Also that we will have to continue to go out to save those we can still save until their forest is respected and protected. Thank you for your support at least giving us a chance to fight for our red ape of Asia in the heart of Borneo.
The SOC team.
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