Orangutans are taken from the wild for tourism

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Last night, I watched a video of an orangutan and saw a comment about the challenges these animals face. It made me feel pretty sad.

This is the YouTube video I watched and in this one, I believe the Orangutan has been trained to relate well with people and take selfies or pictures with them. Because it seems to know how well to pose and even gave the lady a kiss on the cheek and the hand.

https://youtube.com/shorts/SApilKGX4Ok?si=U_BX4KvLmw7hrOqg

However what inspired me to share this particular blog was a commen made by someone. I took a screenshot of that.

Essentially, the comment mentioned that many baby orangutans are left without mothers because they see their mothers murdered, so they can be taken from the wild and either sold or put in pictures with tourists.

The comment also said that in just 20 years, more than half of what was once a home for these animals has been destroyed, particularly by palm oil plantations. The habitats that need to exist for orangutans to survive have been cut down and burned, to replace them with palm trees.

Some baby orangutans have drugs given to them, in order to help them be calm in public and to keep them from biting or screaming, which would cause them to fight back out of fear.

When I watched it again after reading that comment, my feelings intensified. The orangutan seems too calm when compared to what it should be.

Seeing it close up, with its face and eyes, you begin to see a lot of similarities to a human being.

We should be making it a big topic, whether or not boycotting palm oil would help or hurt local farmers. Also, people are trying to help orangutans in some of the rescue centers where there are thousands of orangutans and with hundreds of millions of hectares of rain forests being cleared every year.

After reading some of the comments for a while, I closed the app. It's sad and something needs to be done. Yes human rights is a good thing to fight for but we're not the only creatures that feel pain