- WASHINGTON (Sapa-AP) -- Habitat
destruction by illegal loggers could mean the extinction of orang-utans
within 10 to 20 years, a Harvard researcher studying the apes said on Monday.
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- Forestry has been increasing in recent years, moving
away from the river edges into the interior of the forests where the orang-utans
live, Cheryl Knott said.
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- Knott studies orangutans in Indonesia's Gunung Palung
National Park, home to about 2500 of the animals, about one-tenth of those
in the world. Orang-utans live only in Indonesia and Malaysia, said Knott,
whose work is sponsored by the National Geographic Society.
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- While the government of Indonesia has a commitment to
protect orang-utans, sending in national police periodically, the loggers
return when the police leave, she said.
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- Knott said she hopes to raise awareness internationally
"that we really do have a crisis here. We could wake up in 20 years
and they would be extinct."
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- Orang-utans, like other great apes, are close relatives
to humans. Researchers have learned a lot about them in recent years.
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- Knott said one colony was observed to use primitive tools,
a skill they passed on to their offspring. And she said the group she studies
makes unique sounds under some circumstances.
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- Orangutans are almost totally arboreal, she said.
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- She said several hundred trees have been removed in her
study area. Loggers cut them into manageable logs with chain saws, drag
those logs to a nearby river and float them to market.
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