17/11/2011 (Jakarta Globe) - Police have questioned a researcher who uncovered the torture and killing of orangutans at a palm oil plantation in Muara Kaman, East Kalimantan.

Yaya Rayadin, a researcher from Mulawarman University in Samarinda, the provincial capital, told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday that the questioning took place at the headquarters of the Kutai Kartanegara district police on Monday.

“They asked me about the bones of an orangutan that were taken to my lab for analysis,” Yaya said. The bones, he added, had been discovered by locals at a plantation in Puan Cepak, Muara Kaman district.

“I told them that according to forensic examinations, the bones belonged to an adult orangutan and that it died from unnatural causes,” he said. “The bones had marks from sharp weapons.”

Yaya said he had handed the bones over to the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) for evidence purposes.

This is thought to be the first time the police have questioned anyone in relation to the killing of the protected animals.

The shocking allegations were first made public in September, though police at the time said they needed more evidence before a formal investigation could be launched.

“We need evidence. Can anyone show us the location of the killing, who did it?” Kutai Kartanegara Police Chief Adj. Sr. Comr. I Gusti Harryarsama told RCTI recently. “If there are graves, we can exhume the bodies and take photos.”

The TV station has aired chilling images of people torturing and killing the primates. It also showed the license plate number of a motorcycle that was used by one of the alleged killers.

Yaya said people in the area had been killing orangutans since 2008.

“The forests are the natural habitat of orangutans, including forests that have been converted into palm oil plantations,” the researcher said.

“However, they [orangutans] adapt to changes very well and they survive by observing and learning from the environment around them. The only food available is palm so they eat it.”

One orangutan could eat fruit from up to 30 to 40 palm trees a day, he said. “Therefore, plantation firms consider them pests that must be controlled to prevent losses.”

Meanwhile, RCTI interviewed a former plantation worker who claimed that plantation firms offered rewards for anyone who captured orangutans dead or alive.

“The order was to capture orangutans and monkeys, and bring them to the office,” the anonymous source said.

“Anyone, as long as they worked there, who caught one [orangutan] and brought it to the office would be paid.

“But they also had special hunters. As for the hunters, they just shot them. So any of us who brought three orangutans to the office, after they were photographed, we didn’t have to wait, within a week we would be paid Rp 3 million [$333].”

Captured orangutans would be caged, bludgeoned to death and buried, the source said.

According to an interview-based study carried out by 19 non-governmental organizations there are an estimated 750 orangutans killed in Indonesian Borneo per year.