Before deadly landslides and floods hit about two weeks ago, ranger Amran Siagian, 39, frequently saw Tapanuli orangutans on a hill near Sipirok in South Tapanuli, North Sumatra. Siagian, who has worked with the Orangutan Information Center (OIC) for at least five years, remembers the animals coming down to farms to eat durian and other fruit. After the cyclone-driven landslides and floods, those sightings stopped.
The storms have killed 962 people and left 291 missing in Indonesia, and also caused roughly 200 deaths in southern Thailand and Malaysia. Siagian said the orangutans “must have moved away, further and further away. I could no longer hear their voices.”
Local officials and environmental groups say extensive deforestation linked to mining and logging made the floods worse. Observers in hard-hit Sipirok found large trees felled, and Siagian said a company had been logging there for at least a year. Deforestation was already damaging orangutan habitat by fragmenting the canopy they depend on to travel between trees.
OIC founder Panud Hadisiswoyo estimates about 760 orangutans live in the Tapanuli region, while the World Wildlife Fund places the orangutan population across Indonesia and Malaysia at roughly 119,000. Siagian warned that without government intervention and action to curb widespread deforestation, the local orangutan population could face extirpation in the area.
