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Migrant orangutans learn which foods are good to eat by watching the locals

Migrants male orangutans ‘peer’ at role models to learn about new foods, especially those hard to process or rarely eaten

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FRONTIERS

 

IMAGE: AN UNFLANGED MIGRANT ORANGUTAN MALE (ON THE LEFT SIDE) AND AN ADOLESCENT LOCAL ORANGUTAN FEMALE (ON THE RIGHT SIDE) ARE PEERING AT EACH OTHER. ORANGUTAN SPECIES: PONGO ABELII view more 

CREDIT: CAROLINE SCHUPPLI, SUAQ PROJECT, WWW.SUAQ.ORG

Orangutans are dependent on their mothers longer than any other non-human animal, nursing until they are at least six years old and living with her for up to three years more, learning how to find, choose, and process the exceedingly varied range of foods they eat. But how do orangutans that have left their mothers and now live far from their natal ranges, where the available foods may be very different, decide what to eat and figure out how to eat it? Now, an international team of authors has shown that in such cases, migrants follow the rule ‘observe, and do as the locals do’. The results are published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

“Here we show evidence that migrant orangutan males use observational social learning to learn new ecological knowledge from local individuals after dispersing to a new area,” said Julia Mörchen, a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the University of Leipzig, in Germany, and the study’s lead author. “Our results suggest that migrant males not only learn where to find food and what to feed on from locals, but also continue to learn how to process these new foods.”

Mörchen and colleagues showed that migrant males learn this information through a behavior called ‘peering’: intensely observing for at least five seconds and from within two meters at a role model. Typically, peering orangutans faced the role model and showed signs of following his or her actions with head movements, indicating attentive interest.

Male orangutans migrate to another area after becoming independent, while females tend to settle close to their natal home range.

“What we don’t yet know is how far orangutan males disperse, or where they disperse to. But it’s possible to make informed guesses: genetic data and observations of orangutans crossing physical barriers such as rivers and mountains suggest long-distance dispersal, likely over tens of kilometers,” said Mörchen.

“This implies that during migration, males likely come across several habitat types and thus experience a variety of faunistic compositions, especially when crossing through habitats of different altitudes. Over evolutionary time, being able to quickly adapt to novel environments by attending to crucial information from locals, likely provided individuals with a survival advantage. As a result, this ability is likely ancestral in our hominin lineage, reaching back at least between 12 and 14 million years to the last common ancestor we share with orangutans.”

The authors analyzed 30 years of observations, collected by 157 trained observers, on 77 migrant adult males of the highly sociable Sumatran orangutan Pongo abelii at the Suaq Balimbing research station in Southwest Aceh, and 75 adult migrant males of the less sociable Bornean orangutan Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii at the Tuanan station in Central Kalimantan. They focused on every observation of peering behavior during 4,009 occasionswhen these males were within 50 meters of one or more neighbors, who could be adult females, juveniles, or adult males.

Peering by males was observed 534 times, occurring in 207 (5.2%) of these associations. In Suaq Balimbing, males most frequently peered at local females followed by at local juveniles, and least at adult males. In the less sociable population of Tuanan, the opposite held: males most frequently peered at adult males followed by immature orangutans, and least at adult females. Migrant males at Tuanan may lack opportunities to peer at local females, as females are known to avoid long associations with them in this population.

Migrant males then interacted more frequently with the peered-at food afterwards, putting into practice what they learned through peering.

“Our detailed analyses further showed that the migrant orangutan males in our study peered most frequently at food items that are difficult to process, or which are only rarely eaten by the locals: including foods that were only ever recorded to be eaten for a couple of minutes, throughout the whole study time,” said Dr Anja Widdig, a professor at the University of Leipzig and co-senior author of the study.  

“Interestingly, the peering rates of migrant males decreased after a couple of months in the new area, which implies that this is how long it takes them to learn about new foods,” added Dr Caroline Schuppli, a group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, and co-senior author.

The authors cautioned that it’s still unknown how many times adult orangutans need to peer at a particular behavior to learn to master it. Observations suggest that depending on the complexity or novelty of the learned skill, adults may still use explorative behaviors on certain food items they first learned about through peering – possibly to figure out more details, strengthen and memorize the new information, or to compare the latter with previous knowledge.

An unflanged migrant orangutan male feeding on leaves from a tree fern, Akar Pakis Sarang Burung (Drynaria sparsisora). Orangutan species: Pongo abelii

CREDIT

Julia Mörchen, SUAQ Project, www.suaq.org

A flanged migrant orangutan male feeding on Rotan Tikus leaves (Flagellaria indica), Orangutan species: Pongo abelii

CREDIT

Guilhem Duvot, SUAQ Project, www.suaq.org

An unflanged migrant orangutan male feeding on Rotan Tikus leaves (Flagellaria indica) Orangutan species: Pongo abelii

CREDIT

Natascha Bartolotta, SUAQ Project, www.suaq.orgJOURNAL

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

DOI

10.3389/fevo.2023.1158887 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Migrant orangutan males use social learning to adapt to new habitat after dispersal

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

5-Jul-2023

Sumatran orangutan born at Belgium's Pairi Daiza animal park

By Jack Guy, CNN 8 hrs ago

© Pairi Daiza Mathaï was born on November 28.Sumatran orangutan born at Belgium's Pairi Daiza animal park


An animal park in Belgium has welcomed the arrival of a critically endangered Sumatran orangutan.

The male orangutan, named Mathaï, was born on November 28 at Pairi Daiza animal park, spokesman Mathieu Goedefroy told CNN in a statement Tuesday.

He was conceived and born naturally, joining his father Ujian, mother Sari and brother Berani.

Berani is the only other orangutan born at the park. The sibling is four years older and is "showing great and positive interest in the new baby," said Goedefroy.

The brothers can expect to live up to 45 years and Mathaï will live with his family until around the age of 10, when he reaches adulthood and will have to find a female partner, Goedefroy said.

At that point experts from the European Endangered Species Program will study Mathaï's DNA and that of available female orangutans from around the world to find the best match.

"That way, we ensure a healthy offspring with the best possible genetic qualities, and thus maximizing the odds of survival for the species," said Goedefroy.

Two other adult orangutans at the park, named Gempa and Sinta, are expecting their first child in 2021, according to Goedefroy, who said the park's orangutan program "is going extremely well."

Pairi Daiza is home to a growing group of Sumatran orangutans, and Goedefroy said the park also funds reforestation projects in their main natural habitat.

Orangutans are critically endangered, facing deforestation of their rainforest habitat on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, in Indonesia.

In the last three decades around 80% of irreplaceable orangutan habitat has been lost, according to wildlife charity Born Free, which reports that there are around 14,000 Sumatran orangutans left.

Pairi Daiza said it funds a reforestation program in Indonesia which planted more than 11,000 trees last year.

Sumatran orangutans are one of three identified species of orangutan. An estimated 45,000-69,000 Bornean orangutans are left, according to Born Free, and fewer than 800 Tapanuli orangutans.

This makes the Tapanuli orangutan, which was only identified in 2017, the rarest great ape in the world, Born Free adds. 

© Benoit Bouchez/Pairi Daiza Mathaï will live with his family until reaching adulthood around the age of 10.

Orangutan in Borneo offers its hand to 'rescue' a man from snake-infested water

MUTUAL AID KROPOTKIN

The natural world never fails to surprise us, and this moving encounter between an orangutan and a man in Borneo has melted hearts all over the world.

© Anil Prabhakar/SWNS The orangutan held out its hand to the man, who was clearing snakes from a river as part of efforts to protect the endangered apes.

Amateur photographer Anil Prabhakar captured the fleeting moment, in which one of the Indonesian island's critically endangered apes stretched out its hand to help a man out of snake-infested water.

Prabhakar was on a safari with friends at a conservation forest run by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation(BOS) when he witnessed the scene.

He told CNN: "There was a report of snakes in that area so the warden came over and he's clearing snakes.

"I saw an orangutan come very close to him and just offer him his hand."

Prabhakar said it was difficult for the guard to move in the muddy, flowing water. It seemed as if the orangutan was saying "May I help you"? to the man, he said.

"I really wasn't able to click," he said. "I never expected something like that.

"I just grabbed that moment. It was really emotional."

Venomous snakes are predators of Borneo's orangutans, which are under threat from forest fires, habitat loss and hunting.

"You could say snakes are their biggest enemy," said Prabhakar, a geologist from Kerala in India.

The guard then moved away from the ape and climbed out of the water. When Prabhakar asked why he moved away, "He said, 'they're completely wild, we don't know how they'll react.'"

Prabhakar said the entire encounter lasted just three or four minutes. "I'm so happy that moment happened to me," he said.

© Anil Prabhakar/SWNS The great ape appeared to be trying to help the warden, who was standing in a muddy, flowing river.

His photo of the moment has been liked 15,000 times on Instagram.

The orangutan is Asia's only great ape and is found mostly in Borneo and Sumatra in Indonesia, with the remaining 10% found in Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysia, according to the BOS foundation. It is estimated that the Bornean orangutan population has decreased by more than 80% within the past three generations.

The apes are brought to the conservation forest if they are injured, at risk from hunters or facing destruction of their habitats. Once they are healthy, they are returned to the wild.

They also reproduce very slowly, according to BOS. A female will only give birth every six to eight years in the wild.

© Anil Prabhakar/SWNS The conservation forest is maintained by Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, which protects the critically endangered species from hunters and habitat destruction until they can be returned to the wild.

Zoo Miami: Orangutan dies following dental surgery

This photo provided by Zoo Miami shows orangutan Kumang. Kumang, a 44-year-old 

Bornean orangutan, died Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021, during recovery from anesthesia. 

Credit: Ron Magill/Zoo Miami via AP

An orangutan has died at Zoo Miami following a dental surgery, officials said.

Kumang, a 44-year-old Bornean orangutan, died Thursday during recovery from anesthesia, according to a statement from the South Florida zoo.

"We at Zoo Miami are heartbroken over this terrible loss and our deepest condolences go out to the staff that provided Kumang with such great care over the years," the statement said.

The great ape had been anesthetized for the removal of two teeth, which were damaged and causing an infection in her gums, official's said. The anesthesia, examination and dental care went as planned. Kumang was closely monitored by veterinarians, veterinary technicians and a human cardiologist. Her vitals remained stable, officials said.

After the procedure, Kumang was returned to her enclosure, where she began to recover. Zoo workers said she was able to sit up and climb to her platform bed. But then for unknown reasons, she lied down and stopped breathing, officials said. Efforts to resuscitate Kumang, including CPR, were unsuccessful. Officials said a thorough necropsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

This photo provided by Zoo Miami shows orangutan Kumang, left. Kumang, a 44-year-old

 Bornean orangutan, died Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021, during recovery from anesthesia. 

Credit: Ron Magill/Zoo Miami via AP

Kumang leaves behind an 8-year-old daughter named Bella, who continues to reside at Zoo Miami.

Bornean orangutans are considered endangered, with a global population of just over 100,000. They can be found in the wild in Malaysia and Indonesia on the Asian island of Borneo.

Testing times: Borneo orangutans get COVID swabs

© 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

How Orangutans Changed Their Behavior After Devastating Fires

Primatologists found the disaster’s effects lingered years after the smoke cleared from Borneo’s forests.

BY BRIDGET ALEX

APRIL 5, 2022


A female orangutan and her three-year-old offspring from Central Kalimantan, Borneo; primatologists found the primates reduced social interaction in the wake of destructive fires. 

ANUP SHAH/GETTY IMAGES

IT’S AROUND 4 A.M. on the island of Borneo, and a few researchers have already left camp. In darkness, they creep along boardwalk trails: lines of single planks of wood that offer solid footing in the swamp forest. Where the planks end, the scientists step gingerly into knee-deep muck and toe along tree roots.

The team hopes to reach a slumbering orangutan before she wakes and urinates. They’ll try to catch the stream in a baggie on a stick, as the animal pees from her leafy nest in the trees. Then, they’ll follow her, logging her activity every two minutes until nightfall. The morning urine sample, and more baggies filled throughout the day, will eventually be analyzed in the lab.

Stalking orangutans in a tropical swamp forest of Southeast Asia isn’t easy. “If you think you’re standing on solid ground at any point, that’s an illusion,” says Wendy Erb, a primatologist who has studied the animals in Borneo for the past decade. One slip from a root and the researchers will be fully soaked. Erb and colleagues refer to especially sodden parts of the forest as “the swamps of sadness.”

Researchers use narrow boardwalks in the forests around Borneo’s Tuanan Orangutan Research Station in both the swampy wet season (left) and the fire-prone dry season (right). 

TUANAN ORANGUTAN RESEARCH PROJECT/COURTESY MARIA VAN NOORDWIJK

During the dry season, roughly March through October, the ground hardens and trekking becomes relatively easy. But then the researchers—and the animals they study—face a more serious risk than mud. The swamps are made of peat, slowly decaying dead stuff that is highly combustible. The slightest spark can set the forest ablaze.

That’s what happened in 2015, an extra-dry year due to El Niño. Hundreds of fires raged across Borneo. Orangutans and other forest-dwellers fled from flames, but could not escape the noxious, bleary smoke that smothered their habitat for months. “It’s like this yellowy orange haze. It’s something like a dream world,” Erb says.

Even after the smoke cleared, it continued to cause problems. The haze had starved trees of fresh air and sunlight, and fruit—the preferred food of orangutans—became scarce. Stuck in a less-bountiful forest, ape relations frayed. Adults avoided each other, scuffled more often, and cast off their own kids. A recent paper in the International Journal of Primatology documents these behavioral changes and shows, says study author and University of Zurich primatologist Maria van Noordwijk, “These fires really have a long-term effect.”

An adult male orangutan, photographed through the wildfire-fueled haze that descended across Borneo in 2015. 

TUANAN ORANGUTAN RESEARCH PROJECT/COURTESY MARIA VAN NOORDWIJK

After chimpanzees and gorillas, orangutans are our next closest kin in the great ape family. In the wild, the critically endangered primates can only be found on the Southeast Asian islands of Borneo and Sumatra, where they spend most of their time resting, munching, or moving between tree branches. Some 2,500 wild orangutans dwell in the Mawas Reserve, about 1,000 square miles of swamp forest in Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo. On a small patch of this forest, in the early 2000s, van Noordwijk and colleagues built a few tin-roofed huts and opened the Tuanan Orangutan Research Station. Since then, thanks to more than 60,000 hours of observation, the team has documented over 70 different orangutans, most of which are habituated to the scientists’ presence.

“There’s nothing more magical in the world than being completely ignored by a wild orangutan, and just having them go about their day, and go about their activities,” says Alison Ashbury, a coauthor based at the University of Konstanz.

Socially, orangutans are “the introverts of the forest,” says Ashbury. At Tuanan, promiscuous males roam widely, mating with various females and then absconding. Females mostly keep to their own territories of about a square mile; offspring stay with their mothers for about eight years.

Despite their solitary proclivities, adult females do meet up for at least one reason: to let their kids romp together. Primatologists suspect these playdates are crucial for development. “Young orangutans learn so much socially, the same way that human kids do. They don’t have the innate instincts of other animals, where they can just figure it out on their own. They learn from their moms and their peers,” Ashbury says. And there’s much to learn: what to eat, how to climb and build nests from leafy branches, the dos and don’ts of orangutan society.

First responders attempt to put out a peat fire near a drainage canal in Indonesia in 2015; the canals lower the water table and make the peatlands more prone to catching fire in the dry season. 

MARTIN WOOSTER, CC BY 2.0/NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY

During the unprecedented 2015 fires, when more than 10,000 square miles of Indonesia burned, smoke particles in the air near the study site exceeded safe levels by up to 12 times. Because the swamps are peat, the fires can burn underground, travel along roots, and then pop up anywhere. About 10 percent of the Tuanan habitat burned, as the rest choked in smoke.

Researchers witnessed the orangutans coughing and physiologically stressed. “During the smoke time, they rest more. They travel less. They feed less… trying to save their energy,” says Sri Suci Utami Atmoko, a primatologist based at Jakarta’s Universitas Nasional. When males tried to make long calls—booming shouts to announce their presence—it sounded like they were choking, she says.

Ashbury, Atmoko, and colleagues analyzed recorded observations for 13 adult females over an eight-year period, from 2010 to 2018, that revealed changes in the apes’ lives before, during, and after the fires. During the fires and a subsequent three-year fruit “depression” with fewer resources, the animals ate lower-quality foods, including bark and leaves. They also rested more and roamed less—what Ashbury calls an “extreme energy saving strategy.” But most interesting to the scientists, the orangutans’ already low-key social lives took a hit.

“At first you had the impression that moms were just cranky,” says van Noordwijk. But the analysis showed more serious changes. Mothers spent less time with unrelated adults, which meant fewer playdates for their kids. The moms also pushed their older offspring away at a younger age than they did before the fires.

A female orangutan and her offspring moving through the thick forest of Central Borneo.

 TUANAN ORANGUTAN RESEARCH PROJECT/COURTESY MARIA VAN NOORDWIJK

Erb, who was not an author on the study, wonders “about the long-term consequences to these baby orangutans in terms of their social development and their ecological competency.”

Beyond orangutans, the new research is “really fascinating,” says University of Denver anthropologist Nicole Herzog, who was not involved in the study but researches primate responses to fires in other habitats. “Ecological change,” she says, “does lead to social reorganization.”

Though the scientists focused on orangutans in the paper, the forest holds many other rare species including leopards, slow lorises, the world’s smallest bears, and its biggest bats. Understanding unexpected long-term impacts on the ecosystem is important as climate change fuels more frequent forest fires—and potentially more changes to animal behavior that may linger long after the smoke clears.

Great ape's consonant and vowel-like sounds travel over distance without losing meaning

by University of Warwick

An Orangutan. Credit: Madeleine E. Hardus

Scientists have shown that orangutan call signals believed to be closest to the precursors to human language, travel through forest over long distances without losing their meaning. This throws into question the accepted mathematical model on the evolution of human speech according to researchers from the University of Warwick.

The currently accepted model, developed by mathematicians, predicts that human ancestors strung sounds together in their calls in order to increase their chances of carrying a signal's content to a recipient over distance. Because signal quality degrades over larger distances, it is proposed that human ancestors started linking sounds together to effectively convey a package of information even if it is distorted.

Researchers from the University of Warwick's Department of Psychology set out to collect empirical data to investigate the model. They selected a range of sounds from previously collected audio recordings of orangutan communications. Specific consonant-like and vowel-like signals were played out and re-recorded across the rainforest at set distances of 25, 50, 75 and 100 meters. The quality and content of the signals received were analyzed. The results are revealed in the study "Orangutan information broadcast via consonant-like and vowel-like calls breaches mathematical models of linguistic evolution" published today in Biology Letters.

The team found that although the quality of the signal may have degraded, the content of the signal was still intact—even at long distance. In fact the informational characteristics of calls remained uncompromised until the signal became inaudible. This calls into question the existing and accepted theory of language development.

Dr. Adriano Lameira, an evolutionary psychologist from the University of Warwick, led the study. He said:

"We used our bank of audio data recordings from our studies of orangutan in Indonesia. We selected the clear vowel-like and consonant-like signals and played them out and re-recorded them over measured distances in a rainforest setting. The purpose of this study was to look at the signals themselves and understand how they behaved as a package of information. This study is neat because it is only across distance that you can hope to assess this error limit theory—it disregards other aspects of communication like gestures, postures, mannerisms and facial expressions.

"The results show that these signals seem to be impervious to distance when it comes to encoding information.

"It calls into question the existing thinking based on the model set out 20 years ago by Harvard scientists. Their work assumes that the signals that our ancestors were using were reaching an error limit—a moment when a signal is received but stops being meaningful. They concluded that our ancestors linked sounds together to increase the chance of content traveling over distance.

"We know sound degrades the further away from the source you are. We have all experienced this effect when shouting for your relative or your friend. They don't hear all the words you say—but they recognize you are talking to them and that it is your voice. By using actual great ape communication sounds, which are the closest to those used by our hominid ancestors, we have shown that although the sound package is being distorted and pushed apart, the content remains unaltered. It's a call to the scientific community to start thinking again about how language evolved."

Dr. Adriano Lameira and his team used orangutan calls because they were the first species to diverge from the great ape lineage but are the only great ape which uses the vowel and consonant like sounds in a complex way—giving a parallel with human speech.

His research team is now moving on to deciphering the meaning of their calls. The research involves pulling together all the ways orangutan combine calls, putting the consonant and vowel sounds together to get meaning.

He said: "We still don't know what they are referring to, but right now what is completely clear is that the building blocks of language are present. Although other animal sounds and signals are complex, they are not using the same building blocks. We are focussed here on the building of language—exactly the component the great apes use. It gives us the parallel to human language.

"The Harvard model has been the accepted theory for years and if you ask a mathematician if language origins were still a puzzle they'd say no—but evolutionary psychologists are still working on it. But we haven't solved the puzzle either—if anything we have just gone deeper down the rabbit hole.

"We are proposing that mathematical models be applied to the real life data to see what we can come up with together."Voice control in orangutan gives clues to early human speech

More information: Orangutan information broadcast via consonant-like and vowel-like calls breaches mathematical models of linguistic evolution, Biology Letters, royalsocietypublishing.org/doi … .1098/rsbl.2021.0302

Journal information: Biology Letters 

Provided by University of Warwick 

Wild orangutan uses medicinal plant to treat wound, scientists say

CHRISTINA LARSON
WASHINGTON
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Open this photo in gallery:

This photo provided by the Suaq foundation shows Rakus, a wild male Sumatran orangutan in Gunung Leuser National Park, Indonesia, on Aug. 25, 2022, after his facial wound was barely visible.

SAFRUDDIN/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

An orangutan appeared to treat a wound with medicine from a tropical plant – the latest example of how some animals attempt to soothe their own ills with remedies found in the wild, scientists reported Thursday.

Scientists observed Rakus pluck and chew up leaves of a medicinal plant used by people throughout Southeast Asia to treat pain and inflammation. The adult male orangutan then used his fingers to apply the plant juices to an injury on the right cheek. Afterward, he pressed the chewed plant to cover the open wound like a makeshift bandage, according to a new study in Scientific Reports.

Previous research has documented several species of great apes foraging for medicines in forests to heal themselves, but scientists hadn’t yet seen an animal treat itself in this way.

“This is the first time that we have observed a wild animal applying a quite potent medicinal plant directly to a wound,” said co-author Isabelle Laumer, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal behaviour in Konstanz, Germany.

The orangutan’s intriguing behaviour was recorded in 2022 by Ulil Azhari, a co-author and field researcher at the Suaq Project in Medan, Indonesia. Photographs show the animal’s wound closed within a month without any problems.

Scientists have been observing orangutans in Indonesia’s Gunung Leuser National Park since 1994, but they hadn’t previously seen this behaviour.

“It’s a single observation,” said Emory University biologist Jacobus de Roode, who was not involved in the study. “But often we learn about new behaviours by starting with a single observation.”

“Very likely it’s self-medication,” said de Roode, adding that the orangutan applied the plant only to the wound and no other body part.

It’s possible Rakus learned the technique from other orangutans living outside the park and away from scientists’ daily scrutiny, said co-author Caroline Schuppli at Max Planck.

Rakus was born and lived as a juvenile outside the study area. Researchers believe the orangutan got hurt in a fight with another animal. It’s not known whether Rakus earlier treated other injuries.


Scientists have previously recorded other primates using plants to treat themselves.

Bornean orangutans rubbed themselves with juices from a medicinal plant, possibly to reduce body pains or chase away parasites.

Chimpanzees in multiple locations have been observed chewing on the shoots of bitter-tasting plants to soothe their stomachs. Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos swallow certain rough leaves whole to get rid of stomach parasites.

“If this behaviour exists in some of our closest living relatives, what could that tell us about how medicine first evolved?” said Tara Stoinski, president and chief scientific officer of the non-profit Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, who had no role in the study.

Capitalism Endangers Orangutan

Orangutans Displaced, Killed by Indonesian Forest Fires
Intentionally lit forest fires on the island of Borneo are killing Southeast Asia's endangered orangutans, conservationists warn. The fires are lit annually to clear land for oil palm plantations and agricultural fields. Many of the blazes quickly rage out of control.

A mother orangutan and her baby rest in a tree in Gunung Palung National Park on the island of Borneo in Indonesia. Forest fires set intentionally to clear farmland have been raging on Borneo for weeks, killing about a thousand orangutans and forcing others to flee the forests. Experts say if the pace of destruction continues, the animals may be extinct within a decade.

"Fires Threaten Orangutans"
11 November 2006

Deliberate fires to clear land around the park have burned out of control and are destroying thousands of hectares of forest. Orangutans in the park have fled to the interior to escape the fires. But these interior forests are at risk. And orangutans outside the park are facing grave danger.

Orphaned orangutans are arriving in OFI's Care Center nearly every day. Your donations will help buy food, medicine and staff support to care for them.

Click here to Help Fight the Fires.

Cargill today owns and operates five palm plantations through its business unit CTP Holdings. Two are in Indonesia: one on the island of Sumatra (P.T. Hindoli) and one on the island of Borneo in Kalimantan (Harapan Sawit Lestari).

Cargill and Temasek Holdings Invest in Palm Plantations in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea

Singapore — Cargill and Temasek Holdings have acquired CDC Group plc’s palm plantation interests in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. These include a plantation in Kalimantan (Indonesia) and a majority shareholding in four other plantations in the region. One of these plantations is located in Sumatra (Indonesia), with the other three in Higaturu, Milne Bay and Poliamba (Papua New Guinea).

The new venture is registered in Singapore as CTP Holdings Pte Ltd (CTP). Cargill is the majority shareholder of CTP and will assume managerial and operational responsibilities. Cargill’s existing palm plantation in Sumatra will now become part of CTP.

Plans to create the world's largest palm oil plantation along Indonesia's mountainous border with Malaysia could have a devastating impact on the forests, wildlife and indigenous people of Borneo, warns World Wildlife Fund.

The proposed scheme, funded by China and supported by the Indonesian government, is expected to cover an area of 4.4 million acres on the island of Borneo. Most of this mountainous region, part of the "Heart of Borneo," still holds huge tracts of forests supporting endangered species like orangutans and pygmy elephants, and 14 of the island's 20 major rivers originate there. According to WWF, new species have been discovered there at a rate of three per month over the last decade, making the area one of the richest on the globe for biodiversity.

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JAKARTA - Indonesia's government plans to develop 3 million hectares of palm oil plantations in the next five years to meet increasing demand for biofuel as an alternative source of energy, the agriculture minister said on Wednesday.

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• "The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm"
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Indonesian Forest Fact Sheet

The forests of Indonesia, along with the thousands of animals and plants that live there, are facing grave danger as they are destroyed at an alarming rate due to massive illegal logging and clearing for palm oil plantations. These tropical forests are of global importance, ranked second in terms of size to those of Brazil and covering over 406,000 square miles. The rapid deterioration of tropical forests is causing an incalculable loss in terms of biodiversity and is pushing species such as the orangutan ever closer to extinction.

Indonesia’s Forests Are Disappearing at an Alarming Rate

Indonesia’s forests represent 10% of the world’s remaining tropical rainforests and cover about 260 million acres. According to the European League, by 2001 Indonesia has lost 99 million acres of forest in the last 32 years, which is equivalent to the combined size of Germany and the Netherlands. The current rate of forest loss is about 6.2 million acres a year, but the rate is accelerating.

Plant and Animal Populations Are Also Decreasing Rapidly

Indonesia is one of the five most species-diverse countries in the world, home to 12% of all mammal species, 16% of all reptile and amphibian species, and 17% of all bird species. It also contains 33% of insect species, 24% of fungi species, and 10% of higher plant species. Tanjung Puting National Park (TPNP), site of Camp Leakey, is home to more than 220 bird species, at least 17 reptile species, and 29 mammal species.

Poachers were killing proboscis monkeys along the river
en route to Camp Leakey until OFI began patrolling the area.
Behind Malaysia and the United States, Indonesia has the third highest number of threatened species with 772. It has the highest number of threatened mammal species, however, with 147 - an increase of seven species since the year 2000. According to a recent article in the conservation journal Oryx, 1000 orangutans are lost in Sumatra each year; in Borneo, the number is probably even higher.

Illegal Logging Largely to Blame for Forest Depletion

A study done in 2000 by the Indonesia-United Kingdom Tropical Forest Management Programme concluded that 73% of logging done in Indonesia was illegal. While Indonesia’s forest ministry official harvest figures are just under 882 million cubic feet per year, the combined log consumption capacity of plywood, sawn wood, and pulp and paper industries is 2.6 billion cubic feet per year, which means that industries obtain between one-half and two-thirds of their logs from illegal or unsustainable sources. Illegal logging produces 1.8 billion cubic feet of logs annually, resulting in state financial losses of approximately $3.37 billion. The value of timber stolen from TPNP alone is $8 million each year.

Illegal loggers working in the forest in Lamandau.

Increased Demand for Palm Oil Causes Conversion of Forests

Because of its versatility, world demand for palm oil has increased by 32% over the last five years with the advent of the rapidly expanding food and industrial manufacturing industries, growing at a rate of 7% each year. In fact, palm oil is the world’s best-selling vegetable oil, representing 40% of the total global trade in edible oils. Indonesia accounts for 31% of the world’s production of palm oil, and is expected to be responsible for 41% by 2005. The aim of the former Suharto government was to create a total of 13.5 million acres of palm oil plantations by 2000 - by 1999 the figure had reached 7.4 million, which is nearly five times the size of Bali. The sudden increase in palm oil use has led to the clearing of Indonesia's tropical forests to create monoculture palm oil plantations. Studies in Malaysia and Indonesia have shown that between 80 and 100% of the species of fauna inhabiting tropical rainforests cannot survive in oil palm monocultures (Wakker 2000). In 1999, nearly 800,000 acres of forest were converted for palm oil. Global demand is expected to increase by 50% in the next five years, primarily because palm oil profits are assured by cheap labor, low-priced land, a lack of effective environmental controls, easy availability of finance and support, and a short growth cycle.

Demand for Paper Production Increases, Leading to More Logging

As much as 40% of the wood used by Indonesian pulp producers between 1995 and 1999 came from illegal sources. Massive expansion in plywood, pulp, and paper production in the last two decades has brought demand for wood fiber to exceed the legal supply by 1.2-1.4 billion cubic feet per year. Pulp and paper subsectors have expanded by nearly 700% since 1987.

Timber and Plantation Companies Burn Forests to Clear Land

Approximately 22 million acres of land were damaged by the 1997 and 1998 fires in Indonesia largely caused by timber and palm oil plantation companies clearing land. According to Remote Sensing Solutions GMBH, the 0.80 to 2.57 billion tons of carbon released during that time was the biggest ever measured, corresponding to 13 to 40 percent of the annual global production by burning fossil fuels like oil, coal, and gas. The estimated financial consequences of the fires were over $3 billion from losses in timber, agriculture, and non-timber products, plus the loss of hydrological and soil conservation services as well as biodiversity benefits. Haze from the fires cost an additional $1.4 billion for health treatment and lost tourism revenues.

Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) Works Towards Research, Conservation, and Education

OFI is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of wild orangutans and their rainforest habitat. Founded by Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas and Dr. Gary Shapiro in 1986, OFI operates Camp Leakey, an orangutan research area within Tanjung Puting National Park. OFI also runs the Orangutan Care Center and Quarantine Facility in Pangkalan Bun, which is home to 200 displaced orphan orangutans, and co-manages the Lamandau Nature Reserve, where rehabilitated orangutans are being released into the wild. OFI partners with the Orangutan Conservation Forum, a consortium of groups that is working to counter the primary threats to orangutan survival throughout Indonesia. Through its field programs, OFI also provides employment for over 220 local Indonesians in the vicinity of Tanjung Puting National Park and the Lamandau Nature Reserve.

"Unless extreme action is taken soon," said Dr. Galdikas, "these forests could be gone within the next five to 10 years, and wild orangutans along with them."

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Cargill

Borneo

Orangutan

Apes


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Malaysia’s ‘orangutan diplomacy’ plan slammed as ‘obscene’

Heather Chen, CNN
Sun, May 12, 2024 

China has “panda diplomacy,” Australia parades koalas at global summits – and now Malaysia plans to join the Asia-Pacific trend for adorable ambassadors, by gifting orangutans to countries that buy its palm oil.

But the idea has come under heavy criticism from conservationists, who note that palm oil is one of the biggest factors behind the great apes’ dwindling numbers – with one leading conservation professor calling the plan “obscene.”

The world’s most widely consumed vegetable oil, palm oil is used in everything from shampoo and soaps to ice cream. Clearing land for palm oil plantations has been a major driver of deforestation, the greatest threat to the survival of critically endangered orangutans.

Malaysia is the world’s second-biggest exporter of palm oil after Indonesia.

Production is vital to the economy and government officials have gone to great lengths in recent years to defend and rebrand the industry by introducing initiatives to support sustainability – such as improving agricultural practices and issuing government-endorsed green certificates to companies that meet sustainability standards.

At a biodiversity summit outside the capital Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Malaysia’s minister for plantations and commodities announced plans for “orangutan diplomacy.” Hoping to emulate Chinese panda diplomacy – in which Beijing exerts soft power by loaning its beloved national animal to zoos overseas - the Malaysian government hopes to gift orangutans to some of its biggest trading partners, he said.

Those partners “are increasingly concerned over the impact of agricultural commodities on the climate,” said minister Johari Abdul Ghani. “It is a diplomatic strategy where it would be advantageous to trading partners and foreign relations, especially in major importing countries like the EU, India and China.”

Ghani did not provide further details such as a timeline or how the animals would be acquired – but welcomed palm oil giants to “collaborate” with local environmental groups in caring for the endangered giant apes.

“This will be a manifestation of how Malaysia conserves wildlife species and maintains the sustainability of our forests, especially in the palm oil plantation industry,” he said.

Halved oil palm kernels are seen on the trade floor of a commodities conference and exhibition in Kuala Lumpur. - Tengku Bahar/AFP/Getty Images

The announcement drew swift backlash from conservationists. “It is obscene, repugnant and extraordinarily hypocritical to destroy rainforests where orangutans live, take them away and give them as gifts to curry favor with other nations,” Stuart Pimm, chair of conservation ecology at Duke University, told CNN. “It totally goes against how we should be protecting them and our planet.”

Pimm also noted that cuddly-animal charm offensives were normally followed by wider long-term conservation efforts.

“There is a huge difference between what Malaysia is proposing and what China has done for giant pandas,” he said. “China has state-of-the-art facilities for pandas and more importantly, has established protected areas that safeguard wild panda populations. What Malaysia’s government is proposing is hardly anything comparable.”

CNN has reached out to Ghani, and Malaysia’s Ministry of Plantation and Commodities, for further comment about the proposed orangutan program and how it plans to ensure that it will support conservation and sustainability.

A panda basks in the sun at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. - VCG/Visual China Group/Getty Images

Environmental and conservation groups also strongly opposed the idea, calling on Malaysian officials to instead work on reversing deforestation rates, which they largely blame on palm oil.

Between 2001 and 2019, the country lost more than 8 million hectares (19 million acres) of tree cover, according to a 2022 report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an area nearly as large as South Carolina.

“Malaysia’s land surface area was once almost covered with forest,” the WWF said in its forestry report, which cited enduring threats such as palm oil cultivation and unsustainable logging.

According to a 2023 report by climate watchdog Rimba Watch, a further 2.3 million hectares of forests in Malaysia have been earmarked for palm oil production.

“Orangutan diplomacy will not solve Malaysia’s deforestation crisis,” Heng Kiah Chun, a regional campaign strategist for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, told CNN. “If the Malaysian government is truly committed to biodiversity conservation, it should implement policies against deforestation instead.”

Conservation ‘crucial’

Orangutans are the largest tree-dwelling animals, known to spend most of their lives swinging through canopies of tropical rainforests.

Researchers have noted their incredible intelligence and ability to demonstrate skills such as instinctively treating wounds with medicinal herbs or using tree branches, sticks and stones as tools to break open hard objects like nuts.

The gentle apes, once found in greater numbers across Southeast Asia, have experienced sharp population declines, according to a WWF Malaysia report – particularly on Borneo, the large island shared between Malaysia, Indonesia and the tiny sultanate of Brunei. “In 1973, Borneo was home to an estimated 288,500 orangutans. By 2012, their numbers had dropped by almost two-thirds, to 104,700 and the decline has continued,” the WWF report said.

There are still believed to be around 100,000 orangutans left on Borneo, and 14,000 on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, it added.

“Orangutans are critically endangered. Therefore it is crucial that all remaining orangutan habitats are conserved,” WWF Malaysia told CNN in a statement.

A commitment to improving forest management and the sustainable production of palm oil would be “the best way to showcase Malaysia’s commitment to biodiversity conservation,” WWF Malaysia said.

“Orangutan conservation is best achieved by ensuring the protection and conservation of their natural habitats – and that no further forest conversion into palm oil plantations is allowed.”

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Animals Self-Medicate With Plants, Behavior People Have Observed and Emulated for Millennia

BY ADRIENNE MAYOR

 MAY 31, 2024
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A goat with an arrow wound nibbles the medicinal herb dittany.
O. Dapper, CC BY

When a wild orangutan in Sumatra recently suffered a facial wound, apparently after fighting with another male, he did something that caught the attention of the scientists observing him.

The animal chewed the leaves of a liana vine – a plant not normally eaten by apes. Over several days, the orangutan carefully applied the juice to its wound, then covered it with a paste of chewed-up liana. The wound healed with only a faint scar. The tropical plant he selected has antibacterial and antioxidant properties and is known to alleviate pain, fever, bleeding and inflammation.

The striking story was picked up by media worldwide. In interviews and in their research paper, the scientists stated that this is “the first systematically documented case of active wound treatment by a wild animal” with a biologically active plant. The discovery will “provide new insights into the origins of human wound care.”

Fibraurea tinctoria leaves and the orangutan chomping on some of the leaves.
Laumer et al, Sci Rep 14, 8932 (2024), CC BY

To me, the behavior of the orangutan sounded familiar. As a historian of ancient science who investigates what Greeks and Romans knew about plants and animals, I was reminded of similar cases reported by Aristotle, Pliny the Elder, Aelian and other naturalists from antiquity. A remarkable body of accounts from ancient to medieval times describes self-medication by many different animals. The animals used plants to treat illness, repel parasites, neutralize poisons and heal wounds.

The term zoopharmacognosy – “animal medicine knowledge” – was invented in 1987. But as the Roman natural historian Pliny pointed out 2,000 years ago, many animals have made medical discoveries useful for humans. Indeed, a large number of medicinal plants used in modern drugs were first discovered by Indigenous peoples and past cultures who observed animals employing plants and emulated them.

What you can learn by watching animals

Some of the earliest written examples of animal self-medication appear in Aristotle’s “History of Animals” from the fourth century BCE, such as the well-known habit of dogs to eat grass when ill, probably for purging and deworming.

Aristotle also noted that after hibernation, bears seek wild garlic as their first food. It is rich in vitamin C, iron and magnesium, healthful nutrients after a long winter’s nap. The Latin name reflects this folk belief: Allium ursinum translates to “bear lily,” and the common name in many other languages refers to bears.

As a hunter lands several arrows in his quarry, a wounded doe nibbles some growing dittany.
British Library, Harley MS 4751 (Harley Bestiary), folio 14v, CC BY

Pliny explained how the use of dittany, also known as wild oregano, to treat arrow wounds arose from watching wounded stags grazing on the herb. Aristotle and Dioscorides credited wild goats with the discovery. Vergil, Cicero, Plutarch, Solinus, Celsus and Galen claimed that dittany has the ability to expel an arrowhead and close the wound. Among dittany’s many known phytochemical properties are antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and coagulating effects.

According to Pliny, deer also knew an antidote for toxic plants: wild artichokes. The leaves relieve nausea and stomach cramps and protect the liver. To cure themselves of spider bites, Pliny wrote, deer ate crabs washed up on the beach, and sick goats did the same. Notably, crab shells contain chitosan, which boosts the immune system.

When elephants accidentally swallowed chameleons hidden on green foliage, they ate olive leaves, a natural antibiotic to combat salmonella harbored by lizards. Pliny said ravens eat chameleons, but then ingest bay leaves to counter the lizards’ toxicity. Antibacterial bay leaves relieve diarrhea and gastrointestinal distress. Pliny noted that blackbirds, partridges, jays and pigeons also eat bay leaves for digestive problems.

A weasel wears a belt of rue as it attacks a basilisk in an illustration from a 1600s bestiary.
Wenceslaus Hollar/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

Weasels were said to roll in the evergreen plant rue to counter wounds and snakebites. Fresh rue is toxic. Its medical value is unclear, but the dried plant is included in many traditional folk medicines. Swallows collect another toxic plant, celandine, to make a poultice for their chicks’ eyes. Snakes emerging from hibernation rub their eyes on fennel. Fennel bulbs contain compounds that promote tissue repair and immunity.

According to the naturalist Aelian, who lived in the third century BCE, the Egyptians traced much of their medical knowledge to the wisdom of animals. Aelian described elephants treating spear wounds with olive flowers and oil. He also mentioned storks, partridges and turtledoves crushing oregano leaves and applying the paste to wounds.

The study of animals’ remedies continued in the Middle Ages. An example from the 12th-century English compendium of animal lore, the Aberdeen Bestiary, tells of bears coating sores with mullein. Folk medicine prescribes this flowering plant to soothe pain and heal burns and wounds, thanks to its anti-inflammatory chemicals.

Ibn al-Durayhim’s 14th-century manuscript “The Usefulness of Animals” reported that swallows healed nestlings’ eyes with turmeric, another anti-inflammatory. He also noted that wild goats chew and apply sphagnum moss to wounds, just as the Sumatran orangutan did with liana. Sphagnum moss dressings neutralize bacteria and combat infection.

Nature’s pharmacopoeia

Of course, these premodern observations were folk knowledge, not formal science. But the stories reveal long-term observation and imitation of diverse animal species self-doctoring with bioactive plants. Just as traditional Indigenous ethnobotany is leading to lifesaving drugs today, scientific testing of the ancient and medieval claims could lead to discoveries of new therapeutic plants.

Animal self-medication has become a rapidly growing scientific discipline. Observers report observations of animals, from birds and rats to porcupines and chimpanzees, deliberately employing an impressive repertoire of medicinal substances. One surprising observation is that finches and sparrows collect cigarette butts. The nicotine kills mites in bird nests. Some veterinarians even allow ailing dogs, horses and other domestic animals to choose their own prescriptions by sniffing various botanical compounds.

Mysteries remain. No one knows how animals sense which plants cure sickness, heal wounds, repel parasites or otherwise promote health. Are they intentionally responding to particular health crises? And how is their knowledge transmitted? What we do know is that we humans have been learning healing secrets by watching animals self-medicate for millennia.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Adrienne Mayor is a Research Scholar in Classics and History and Philosophy of Science at Stanford University.