Orangutan shot 130 times in Indonesia, in second killing reported this year

JAKARTA — A second orangutan has been found killed in Indonesian Borneo in as many months, this time shot more than 100 times with a pellet gun, a conservation group has reported. An X-ray on the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) that died in East Kalimantan province on Feb. 6 revealed 130 pellets in its body. Authorities carrying out an autopsy managed to recover 48 of them, according to a statement from the Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP), a conservation NGO. Most of the pellets were located in the animal’s head; it had also been shot multiple times in the arms, legs and torso. The total number of pellets found is “the most ever in the history of human-and-orangutan conflicts in Indonesia,” said Ramadhani, habitat protection manager at the COP. Indonesian officials in eastern Borneo on Tuesday identified 130 pellets in the body of an orangutan through an X-ray. They managed to recover 48. Photo courtesy of the Centre for Orangutan Protection. The critically endangered ape was found barely alive on Feb. 5 by officials from the Kutai National Park Agency, following a report of a badly injured orangutan stuck in a tree. It died of its extensive injuries the following day. The autopsy also revealed palm fruit kernels in the orangutan’s colon, and pineapple remnants in its stomach, suggesting it had been feeding in crop farms. “Our team is investigating the area where the orangutan was found,” Ramadhani said. Plantation operators in regions of Borneo and Sumatra inhabited by orangutans…

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