AN INTERNATIONAL animal charity claims it saved a petrified pregnant orang-utan mother and her infant after they were surrounded by headhunters in Borneo.

The charity Four Paws, which was founded in Austria and campaigns to end animal cruelty, had been searching the area around a palm oil plantation after news of killings emerged. According to the charity, palm oil companies pay up to 1 million rupiah (about $100) for each orang-utan slaughtered.

''The Four Paws search unit did not find any surviving orang-utans apart from a pregnant female and her infant, who were already surrounded by a gang of local youths intending to kill them for the bounty,'' the organisation's website said.

''The petrified animals were rescued at last minute and brought to one of the few remaining safe areas in the jungle of Borneo.''

Dr Signe Preuschoft, a Four Paws primate expert, told the Daily Mail: ''Our arrival could not have been more timely.''

The charity, which runs an orang-utan orphanage, said the apes have since been successfully released into the wild.

Large tracts of forest in Borneo have been cleared through logging and forest conversion for oil palm plantations and other agriculture.

According to WWF, orang-utans are an easy target for hunters, being large and slow, and studies have indicated that 200-500 baby orang-utans from Borneo are illegally traded as pets each year.