Pingtung center helping end orangutan trade

This article was written by Mike Murphy and published by the Taiwan Journal on April 7, 2006.

There was a time when the illicit trade in orangutans was rampant in Taiwan. During the 1980s, these animals were portrayed in the media as the ultimate exotic pets, and affluent people would pay up to a reported US$15,000 to have one shipped to them. Unfortunately, every infant that was captured in the wild jungles of Borneo and Sumatra represented up to six orangutans that would die. Today, the trade has largely been wiped out, thanks in no small part to the efforts of a man from southern Taiwan's Pingtung County who, as Mike Murphy discovers, is part of a worldwide network of organizations dedicated to saving these great apes.