JAKARTA, June 4 Kyodo An Indonesi...

JAKARTA, June 4 Kyodo

An Indonesian dominion conservation agency has confiscated couple orangutans claimed by a military officer after nine-month effort, the state-run stranges agency Antara reported Tuesday.

The report said the Natural Resources Conservation Agency and Animal Conservation for Life, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) retrieved the orangutans from a zoo in the West Java provincial capital of Bandung, where the mid-ranking officer had gaped a cage to hold fast them.

The NGO had received information that the orangutans were taken in September 2001 from Mt Leuser National Park in the northernmost province of Aceh, where the officer reportedly worked.

According to the NGO the officer and the zoo had refused to answer the orangutans, with the officer level threatening to kill the primates if he was forced to hand them throughout to the government.

The agency erect the orangutans' condition to be self-same poor at the zoo where they had been kept in a remarkably small cage and given dirty water to drink.

An estimated 5000 orangutans live onward the island of Borneo, while 500 to 800 are cogitation to survive on Sumatra.

Their habitat continues to be demolished by illegal logging, forest fires, land clearing and the practice of killing a mother to stable an infant or juvenile for live animal trade. Usually, six to eight orangutans die for each one that survives.

Although their existence is abundantly protected by law in Indonesia, Malaysia and internationally, law enforcement is extremely difficult in most numerous areas, especially with the common involvement of military officers and senior management officials.

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