Green Daily

Orangutans are intelligent and expressive great apes found only in Borneo, where they are endangered, and Sumatra where they are critically endangered. It is almost incomprehensible, but experts predict that orangutans could be extinct within ten years!

These gentle giants are the victims of forest fires, unsustainable logging practices, and mining, all of which threaten their habitat. They face an even more deadly attack from palm oil plantations, which have taken over vast swathes of rain forest at a terrifying rate in the past ten years. Ironically, the use of palm oil as a biodiesel fuel has contributed to the rapid growth of these farms.

Like humans, orangutans have a very long "childhood." Young orangutans stay with their mothers for the first six or seven years of their lives. Sadly, poachers often kill the mothers in order to get the babies, which they sell in the (illegal) exotic pet trade.

When the babies are rescued from these monsters, they need constant care, just like a humans. Places like Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation and Reintroduction Center in Borneo help injured and orphaned baby orangutans. First by keeping them alive, and then by helping them learn the skills so they can be reintroduced into the wild.

To find out what you can do to help, plus to see some ridiculously cute photos of baby orangutans, check out some of these organizations that are trying to save the orangutan:

• World Wildlife Fund
• The Nature Conservancy
• Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation Indonesia
• Borneo Orangutan Survival UK
• The Orangutan Crisis Coalition
• The Center for Great Apes

Did I miss one of your favorites? Leave it in comments so we can all learn more!