A CHARITY has helped rescue two baby orangutans who were caged and allegedly ready to be sold online.

The orangutans were found by police in West Borneo and it is believed they were being held captive, ready to be sold through social media to illegal buyers.

The two apes, a one-year-old male and an eight-month-old female, which were discovered in tiny cages are now in the care of the Uckfield-based charity International Animal Rescue (IAR) at its centre in Ketapang, West Borneo.

A man has been arrested for the trafficking of wildlife both directly and by using online forums and social media sites.

A spokeswoman for IAR said: “The general condition of the two orangutans is fair, although both are dehydrated and suffering from severe distress.

“One of them is rocking back and forth - this is an abnormal behaviour presented by animals in extremely stressful conditions.”

David Muhammad, head of the law enforcement agency of the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, said that the orangutans were captured by a hunter in Sintang.

He added that the animals were collected by the arrested man who was suspected to be selling them for about IDR 3 million, or about £175.

Mr Muhammad said: “Our team is continuing its investigation as we believe the man now under arrest belongs to an international trafficking syndicate.”

Tantyo Bangun, chairman of IAR Indonesia, said that it was likely that the orangutans would be sold via social media websites such as Facebook or Instagram.

He said: “If we want to stop the trade in wildlife we must target cyber crime.

“We must work together with all online social networks which are currently failing to tackle this illegal activity.”

Orangutans in Borneo have experienced dramatic declines of up to 60 per cent in the past 50 years, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The two new arrivals bring the total number of orangutans in IAR’s centre in Ketapang to 111.

The IUCN has reclassified the Bornean orangutan as critically endangered as numbers have dropped by more than 80 per cent in the past 75 years.

Karmele Llano Sanchez, programme director of IAR Indonesia, said: “Having such a large number of orangutans undergoing rehabilitation, with more having to be rescued, makes it harder and harder to find safe places where we can release them.

“If we do not address the root cause of the problem, we will never halt this decline.”