The orang-utans of Borneo have been pushed to the brink of extinction by human activity over the past hundred years, research has revealed.
A genetic study of the great apes that remain in the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in Sabah, the Malaysian part of Borneo, has found strong evidence that their numbers have collapsed in only a century. The analysis of the orang-utan gene pool shows that the species was relatively abundant on Borneo until comparatively recently, but began to decline in the early 20th century.
The genetic diversity of the apes has shrunk even more rapidly in recent decades, suggesting that forest clearance, which accelerated after the 1950s, has had a dramatic impact.
Benoit Goossens, a wildlife geneticist at Cardiff University, led the study. In his team’s research, published today in the journal Public Library of Science Biology, hair and faeces were collected for genetic analysis.