Summary of Survey Results

The incidence of media reports on orang-utans has increased dramatically during the last decades. The public is now able to see and hear of the ape more frequently than ever, and the numbers of orang-utans confiscated from illegal captivity is staggering. Even primatologists studying the ecology of the ape are finding higher densities than had been thought possible for a ‘solitary ape.’ For people of limited vision, this might indicate that there are apparently more orang-utans than had been believed, and that the ape is far from rare. In reality, however, the high incidence of reported sightings may simply reflect that the modern world, by way of the rampant exploitation and conversion of the forest is expanding in such a way that it cannot avoid confrontations with the last, desperately compressed populations of wild animals, in particular in the previously ignored vestiges of wilderness. Irrespective of their hiding skills, few orang-utans can avoid encounters with the many thousands of people constantly intruding into their domain; many orang-utans are forced out of devastated forests that used to be their home, to roam in search of food, either crowding into the last relict patches of habitat, or entering the private gardens of hostile people. Large numbers of orang-utans were massacred while fleeing the flames and smoke during and after the extensive forest fires of 1997–1998 in Borneo.