14 DAY TRIAL // A group of villagers in Indonesia have recently killed an orangutan. The incident occurred last week, on Thursday, in the country's Aceh province.
Information shared with the public says that the animal suffered extensive injuries at the hands of the villagers and that, despite efforts to revive it, it soon passed away.
To make matters even worse, it appears that the people responsible for the ape's death were not even acting in self-defense.
Long story short, they attacked the orangutan because they wished to capture it and either sell it or keep it as a pet. The ape did not at any moment constitute a threat to them, Mongabay reports.
Local conservation groups explain that, as surprising as this may sound, incidents such as this one are not in the least few and far in between in Indonesia.
On the contrary, run-ins between people and these apes happen on a regular basis.
This is because orangutans have few places left to hide, and because local law enforcement officers more often than not do little to keep people from capturing and abusing them.
The orangutan killed in Indonesia's Aceh province last week was a female.
People working with the Aceh Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) and the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Foundation-Orangutan Information Centre (YOSL-OIC) tried to save it.
However, by the time they got to the Panton Luas village, it was already too late.
“When we received the information we immediately coordinated with BKSDA and took action to try to save her. But from the photos we received when the rescue team arrived to pick her up and treat the orangutan at seven o’clock this morning, it was clear that the orangutan was already dying and there was no hope that she would survive.”
“Sadly, due to the seriousness of her injuries, she died two hours into the drive,” a local veterinarian named Ikhsan told the press.
Although the villagers claim that they merely wanted to capture the ape, some suspect that what they were really interested in was killing it.
Otherwise, they would not have beaten it with such fierceness.