Except when the fires came. Every day you saw orangutans in the trees on the other bank of the river. Every day you would see them trying to escape the fires. Most simply burned with the forest. Travelling across the region is like entering Dante's Inferno.
Nobody really knows how many orangutans are left.
The horrific fires which spread through Borneo and Sumatra in 1997 and 1998 no doubt killed very many of these creatures. Orangutangs are unable to swim and when they reach the river banks they have no escape from the fires. The fires have started again in the last few weeks of 1998. The latest estimates made before the fires is that only 15,000 to 25,000 remain. This figure is disputed by Birute Galdikas, the renowned primatologist who has worked with orangutans in Kalimantan for the last 25 years.