(photo By FLEECIRCUS)

(photo by FLEECIRCUS)

Above you see two hands, one of which, belongs to Barcelona. Barcelona is a Sumatran Orangutan, rescued by the Sumatra Orang Utan Conservation Program.

Why did she need to be rescued in the first place?

Her mother was shot. The poachers took her mother’s body to sell the meat and bones, both for consumption and ancient Chinese remedies. Barcelona, on the other hand, was taken and thrown in a steel cage, to be sold as a pet at a local market in Kalimantan, Indonesia. When the Sumatra Orang Utan Conservation Program found her, she was in terrible condition. She was sick and starving from the cramped arrangements she suffered through, as well as the lack of her mother’s milk. Almost taken by the icy grasp of death, Barcelona ended up making a miraculous recovery, and is expected to be released back into the wild soon.

This is just one of many heart-wrenching stories of the Great Apes, and Orangutans in particular. But not all of them have a happy ending. Bornean Orangutan populations have declined by 50% in the past 60 years, and Sumatran Orangutans have had their population cut by 80% in the past 75 years. They have lost much of their past lands, being wiped out in many countries completely. They are now victims of the illegal pet trade, the conversion of forests to palm oil plantations, forest fires, the bushmeat trade, hunting, crop protection (Orangutans are notorious for raiding crops with humans encroaching ever further onto their lands), fragmentation by new roads, and traditional medicinal practices. Only 7,300 Sumatran Orangutans, and 55,000 Bornean Orangutans remain alive and wild. Now compare that to the 7,000,000,000 humans.

This is the last land the Orangutan clings to, the islands of Sumatra and Borneo

In an ever-changing, shrinking world for the Orangutan, they could sure use a hand.

Make a difference. Save an ape.