'750 orang-utans killed' in past year

At least 750 endangered orang-utans have been killed by villagers on the Indonesian side of Borneo over a year-long period, according to a new survey.

Some were killed in order to protect farmers’ crops, while others were killed for their meat, researchers found.

Erik Meijaard, main author of the report that appeared in the journal PLoS One, said he believes the killings pose a more serious threat to the apes’ survival than previously thought.

Indonesia is home to 90% of the 50,000-60,000 orang-utans left in the wild.

But as forests are being cleared to make way for pulp, paper and palm oil plantations, the apes are coming into conflict with humans.

The Nature Conservancy and other organisations interviewed nearly 7,000 people in 687 villages to try to better understand the underlying causes for killing orang-utans.