Illegal Pet Trade

The illegal pet trade poses a big threat to the wellbeing of orangutans. Keeping a pet is normal in larger cities and even though keeping a primate as a pet is illegal, many still keep baby orangutans as pets. This is because not only can a pet orangutan as a pet can be a status symbol in Indonesia, pet trade is also a lucrative trade.

baby_orangutan_osiria

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Although a baby orangutan is extremely cute, orangutans make unsuitable pets as they grow to be extremely strong (as strong as 5-7 men!) and can be unpredictable and aggressive as they reach maturity. This puts the owner in danger of getting seriously hurt.

baby and mother orang

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Orangutan mothers and their babies have a surprisingly strong bond. A mother orangutan will never let another individual orangutan or otherwise, to take her infant. The mother and child will be in constant contact for the first six months of the child’s life. Due to this strong bond, the only way to separate the mother and baby is to have the mother killed, and the baby pried from her dead body. These orphaned orangutans are then passed from buyer to buyer, being sold for an increasingly lucrative price as it passes hands. An orangutan baby can fetch anywhere between 243 000-1 007 000 rupiah ($27-$112) in Borneo.

Because of their high price orangutan babies are usually kept by villagers not as pets, but as an asset that can be sold when times get tough.