The orangutan population was cut in half due to loss of habitat and illegal capturing. There is an ongoing competition between orangutans and humans for the palm oil trees that make the orangutan's home. If the orangutans weren't so dependent on trees and could run or even walk easily on the forest floor, their loss of numbers might not be so great. Because babies are so dependent on their mothers, if their mother is captured, the baby or babies would die. The orangutan population has been constantly decreasing, and will most likely continue to decrease unless a major change occurs. If the orangutan population were to go extinct, which is likely, the impact on the ecosystem will most likely be a minor one because the chimps and other apes in the forest would take over the orangutans' niche. In reality, the whole ecosystem is slowly being torn apart by loggers, so every species will die.