Plantation workers face jail for eating orangutan

Killing of ape may mean five years in Indonesia prison

JAKARTA // A critically endangered Bornean orangutan was shot dead, cut up and eaten by workers after straying on to an Indonesian palm oil plantation, police and campaigners said yesterday.

Police have formally named three male suspects in the kill- ing in Kapuas Hulu district, in the Indonesian part of Borneo island, while another seven are being questioned as witnesses to the crime.

Authorities launched an investigation after media ran stories showing pictures of the dead ape. The workers were detained after police found orangutan bones and dried meat in a cupboard at a plantation workers’ camp in a remote part of the island, police chief Jukiman Situmorang said. He said the three workers named as suspects were accused of “shooting, hacking, chopping, cooking and eating the orangutan” on January 27.

The men could be jailed for up to five years if found guilty of breaking laws that protect the animals.

Environmental group the Centre for Orangutan Protection ( Cop) condemned the killing and urged police to target the company that runs the plantation as well as the workers.

The head of Cop, Hardi Baktiantoro, criticised palm oil com- panies for introducing rules that leave workers liable to punishment if there is any damage to plants. Workers treat orangutans – who often stray on to plantations and cause damage – as pests and attack them.

Mr Baktiantoro also said authorities should never have given permission for a plantation in the area.

“Why would they give a permit in an area that is an orangutan habitat?”

Orangutans are also attacked by villagers who view them as pests and targeted by poachers to be sold as pets.

The habitat of Bornean orangutans has dwindled by more than 50 per cent in the past 20 years, and its population has fallen by more than 50 per cent over the past 60 years, according to wildlife conservation group World Wide Fund.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies orangutans as critically endangered.