‘The toll is huge’: El Niño-driven wildfires overwhelm Indonesia’s orangutan population — SkimNews
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- IUCN primate specialists called for urgent international assistance, warning that thousands of orangutans could be killed, injured or displaced as El Niño-driven fires tear through Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua.
- Wildfires have affected habitat containing 52% of the total Bornean orangutan population, with an estimated 600,000 hectares damaged in August alone according to environmental group YKAN.
- Yiari has evacuated more than 20 orangutans alongside West Kalimantan's Natural Resources Conservation Agency; one rescued orangutan died, likely from smoke inhalation, and others were found with burns on their hands from touching scorching ground.
- Fires have also spread into habitats of five gibbon species listed as endangered and 21 Sumatran elephant habitats, where environmental NGO Geopix detected 4,500 fires in recent months.
- Researchers warn of long-term effects: forests take years to recover fruit production, orangutans show ketosis during smoky periods, and reduced vocal quality in orangutans — and less singing in gibbons — has persisted for months after smoke clears.
- Veterinarian Karmele Llano Sanchez, co-founder of primate rescue group Yiari, said 80 days without rain has left torched forests with "no leaves and no fruits – nothing they can eat."
- Forestry minister Raja Juli Antoni told media the wildfires could continue until early November, with the rainy season expected to arrive late, while the 23-year-old Tuanan orangutan research station remains under active fire threat.
Why it matters: This is a conservation emergency bound to a hard natural deadline: Indonesia's rainy season is the only firebreak, and forestry minister Raja Juli Antoni says it may not arrive until November. With 52% of Bornean orangutan habitat burning and 23 years of irreplaceable data at the Tuanan research station threatened, the cost of delayed international response is measured in a critically endangered species — not just acreage.
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