Guest guest Posted January 24, 2006 Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 Tuesday January 24, 2006 - The Star Orang utan on road to extinction By MUGUNTAN VANAR KOTA KINABALU: A first-ever genetic study of Sabah's orang utans paints a bleak future for the last of these creatures if the equatorial forests continue to be cleared. " We have strong evidence of population collapse among the orang utans. We have used DNA information to simulate population history, " said Dr Benoit Goossens, a wildlife geneticist from Cardiff University, who carried out the three-year study. He estimated Sabah's current orang utan population at about 11,000 and said the population had declined " drastically " in the last 100 years as deforestation began as early as in the 1890s and accelerated in the 1950s and the 1970s. The findings of the study on the orang utans in the Kinabatangan area was conducted by the Sabah Wildlife Department, Cardiff University, Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project and Universiti Malaysia Sabah. The study, which appears in the online edition of the scientific journal Plos Biology from today, involved researchers from the France-based Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique funded by the British-based Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species. Dr Goossens said the study was necessary to help develop an effective conservation method by determining when the population began to decline and its original numbers. " To do so, we collected hair from tree nests nearly 30m above the ground and faeces found under the nests or along the Kinabatangan river, " Dr Goossens said, adding that 200 orang utans were identified and used as genetic markers. Dr Marc Ancrenaz, who coordinated the survey, said that logging, clearing of forests for oil palm plantations and illegal hunting of the apes were the main threats to the orang utan's survival. " Ideally, all forests that harbour orang utans should be kept under forest management and should follow sustainable logging practices, " he said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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