I read today in the news that villagers in Borneo were attacking refugee Orangutans. Why would they do this?
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In It’s Not Just Conflict That Motivates Killing of Orangutans by Davis et al. (2013), the authors identify number of conflict and non-conflict reasons reported in the study why orangutans were killed in a certain part of Indonesia:
Conflict reasons:
- pest
- fear/self-defence
- paid or forced to kill
- orangutans interrupted logging or forestry operations
Non-conflict reasons:
- traditional medicine
- food
- to sell or keep young as pets
- hobby/sport hunting
- for other trade of animals or meat
- killed accidentally or opportunistically while hunting other animals
The results from this survey are depicted in this graph:
Obviously in this case they were not attacked for food. The impression I got from the article makes me think it was probably motivated by people viewing them as pests or as a threat/danger. It is almost certainly more of a social reason than a biological reason. However, in the absence of specific evidence, it is probably not helpful to speculate why this occurred.
