Human Writes: Wild animals losing their homes at frightening rates

Maria is a female orangutan that was rescued from bad conditions in a private zoo on the peninsula and taken to the Matang Wildlife Centre in Sarawak. — Filepic

A friend travelling in Borneo recently returned with harrowing tales from an orangutan sanctuary in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Some orangutans there had been rescued from various abuses, and even the sex trade.

News reports also confirm a string of horrors. Orangutans have been burnt, shot, stoned, stabbed and tortured in Borneo. The case of one young rescued orangutan kept as a sex slave for years in a village has been well publicised.