apes in space saving an imperilled orangutan population in sumatra猿在节约空间危害人口在苏门答腊猩猩.pdfVIP

Apes in Space: Saving an Imperilled Orangutan Population in Sumatra 1 2 3 1,4 Gail Campbell-Smith *, Miran Campbell-Smith , Ian Singleton , Matthew Linkie 1 Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom, 2 Orangutan Information Centre, Human-Orangutan Conflict and Mitigation Programme, Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, 3 Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, PanEco Foundation, Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, 4 Fauna Flora International, Cambridge, United Kingdom Abstract Deforestation rates in Sumatra are amongst the highest in the tropics. Lowland forests, which support the highest densities of orangutans, are particularly vulnerable to clearance and fragmentation because they are highly accessible. Consequently, many orangutans will, in the future, live in strictly or partially isolated populations. Whilst orangutans have been extensively studied in primary forests, their response to living in human-dominated landscapes remains poorly known, despite it being essential for their future management. Here, we focus on an isolated group of critically endangered Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) that co-exist with farmers in a mixed agroforest system consisting of degraded natural forest, smallholder (predominantly rubber) farms and oil palm plantations. Over 24 months we conducted the first ever spatial assessment of orangutan habitat use in the human-transformed landscape of Batang Serangan, North Sumatra. From 1,204 independent crop-raiding incidents recorded, orangutans showed strong foraging preference for mixed farmland/degraded forest habitat over oil palm patches. The core home range areas of the eight adult orangutans encompassed only 14% of the