Guardians of the Forest

EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.

- Linda Zajac

In a steamy rainforest, an orangutan scales a tree, gripping and grabbing with fingers and toes. Palm fronds rustle. At the top, it uses its teeth and hairy hands to rip away the bark, revealing the ivory-colored center, the “heart of the palm.” High in the sky, the creature crunches on the tender stalk.

In a field nearby, Serge Wich, biologist, ecologist, and professor at Liverpool John Moores University in England, is studying orangutans. Wich and his colleague, Lian Pin Koh, are working in Sumatra, an Indonesian island in Asia. They’re running a series of tests with one of the first drones ever used to study wildlife. It’s 2011, and drones aren’t yet common. They cobbled this one together from spare parts. They need to count orangutan nests to monitor the population, and they’re hoping this drone can help.

Why Study Orangutans? 

These shaggy apes face many threats. They live in tropical rainforests on Sumatra and Borneo, but the lush forests are under siege. Agriculture, mining, logging, and palm oil plantations are destroying and dividing the land. Palm oil is found in many foods and products you use, like chocolate, potato chips, and soap. Orangutans eat mainly fruit, but loggers prize the hardwood from these trees.

The apes are also hunted. “They wander into gardens or onto palm oil plantations,” says Wich. “People don’t want them there, so they kill them. On both islands, they still eat them on occasion.” Every year since 1990, the number of orangutans has declined by several thousand.