Orangutan, Rehabilitation Centre in Sepilok, Malaysia, 2022 (photography)

Orangutans at the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in Sepilok, Sandakan, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia. Orangutans are in serious danger of extinction. 80% of specimens will die in the coming years. From 1999 to 2015, in just sixteen years, the total number of Bornean orangutans has been reduced by more than 100,000 individuals, according to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. The new study, the most comprehensive yet, shows two things: that the orangutan population in Borneo was larger than previously thought, and that the species is disappearing faster than anticipated. Its current population is estimated to be only between 40,000 and 100,000 primates. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), all three orangutan species could disappear in the not too distant future. The main causes of the reduction of the orangutan population are, above all, deforestation, the illegal trafficking of specimens and the exploitation of their natural habitat, as a result of the rapid expansion of vast palm oil plantations, the fruit of which is sells for the manufacture of biodiesel, oil and many other food products.