These are the horrific pictures of three female orangutans who were killed in a land fire in Indonesia.
The orangutans, two, twenty-year-olds and a baby orangutan
approximately one year old, were caught in the blaze near a protected forest in
Bontang City, East Kalimantan.
The founder of the Centre for Orangutan Protection, Hardi
Baktiantoro, claims the forest fire was deliberately started to clear the land
for farming.
“It is completely illegal to clear forest land by burning
it, and in this case the land that was burnt still had three orangutans living
there,” he said.
After investigating the death of the orangutans, a team of
officers from the Kutai National Park and the Bontang city police buried the
three orangutans.
'The bodies of the orangutans were decayed so we buried
them soon after the investigation to prevent them from spreading disease,' the
head of the Kutai National Park Office, Erly Sukrismanto, said.
The body of the orangutans were discovered after a resident
posted a picture of them on Facebook.
Professional photojournalist Yuli Seperi said, “I saw a
friend post a status on Facebook about the deaths so I went the location where
the three orangutans were.
The deaths made me extremely upset as orangutans are a huge
icon to Indonesia.”
The forest fires are claimed to have started around 2:30
p.m., Saturday, February 20.
The founder of the Centre for Orangutan Protection said, “It
is not clear why the three orangutans could not escape the fire as they usually
can. Perhaps they were afraid of the humans that surrounded the fragmented
forest.
The three dead are believed to be a family of all females,
two twenty year olds and one baby orangutan around the age of one.”
