World affairs

John McClane ain’t got nothing on an incredibly brave orangutan who survived a vicious attack in which she was shot more than 100 times with a pellet gun in Indonesian Borneo.

Unlike McClane, however, the orangutan, known as "Aan" to conservationists, didn’t put herself in the line of fire, but was hunted down and found with 104 pellets in her body on a palm oil plantation in Central Kalimantan province.

According to Associated Press, Aan, who has been dubbed a ‘badass’ for her incredible survival instincts, underwent surgery last week in which 32 of the pellets were removed, but she has been blinded in her left eye, may require another operation and will probably not be able to return to the wild because of her condition.

Approximately 90 per cent of orangutans living in the wild reside in forests in Indonesia, but theirs is an endangered existence due to the clearing of forests to procure timber, pulp, paper and, as in this case, palm oil, and more frequent and often fatal encounters with humans.

As a result, the orangutan population is in serious decline and in danger of extinction, but if Aan is representative of the rest of her species, they should be OK for a while yet.

Main pic via Huffington Post