Two Indonesian men arrested for shooting an orangutan multiple times and then decapitating it before tossing the corpse into a river, have told investigators they acted in self-defence, police said Thursday.

The suspects, both rubber plantation workers on the island of Borneo, admitted they killed the critically endangered male Bornean orangutan whose headless body was found last month.

Its hair was burned off its body which was riddled with at least 17 bullet wounds.

Pictures of the beheaded corpse floating by the riverbank quickly spread online and sparked an angry reaction from animal rights activists, among others.

"They claimed they killed the orangutan because they were scared to see such a big animal suddenly coming their way," Central Borneo police chief Anang Revandoko told AFP.

"The investigation is still ongoing," he added.

Orangutans can grow to the size of humans and have enormously powerful arms but are not known to attack unless their habitat is threatened.

Investigators said they seized a machete allegedly used to attack the animal, whose body was discovered by a local villager.

"The men shot the animal multiple times but (they said) it didn't die," Revandoko said.

"One of them then decapitated it from behind. Then they buried its head in the backyard of their house and dumped the body in the river."

If convicted, the suspects, who are 32 and 41, could face up to five-years in jail under Indonesia's conservation law, he added.

Bornean and Sumatran orangutans are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The Sumatran orangutan population is estimated to be just under 15,000, while about 54,000 orangutans are thought to live in Borneo, according to the IUCN.

Rampant logging and the rapid expansion of palm oil plantations have been blamed for destroying their jungle habitat.

Plantation workers and villagers are sometimes known to attack an animal that many see as a pest, while poachers also capture them to sell as pets.

Indonesia traffickers sold crocs, pythons on social media: police
Jakarta (AFP) Jan 31, 2018 - A group of suspected animal traffickers have been arrested in Indonesia for selling crocodiles, pythons and other protected species through Facebook and the messaging service WhatsApp, police said Wednesday.

The case is the latest example of how social media has become a key online market place for animal traffickers as conservationists warn that tech giants have not done enough to halt the trade on their platforms.

The seven suspects, who were arrested at separate locations in and around Jakarta last week, bought the animals for just 300,000 rupiah ($22) each before re-selling them online for between two million and five million rupiah, authorities said.

"The suspects put the animals up for sale on a Facebook page or via WhatsApp," said Jakarta police spokesman Argo Yuwono.

"Interested buyers were asked to meet and the animals were handed over to them," he added.

The suspects have been charged under Indonesia's environment law which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

The for-sale animals, including some rare species endemic to Indonesia, were brought to the capital Jakarta from the jungles of Java and Sumatra islands, Yuwono said.

During their raids, police said they confiscated two crocodiles, two reticulated pythons, six jungle cats, a pair of gibbons, two Javan lutungs, a Javan surili, two owls, a brahminy kite eagle, and a slow loris.

The animals were handed over to Jakarta's conservation agency.

Earlier this month conservation watchdog TRAFFIC warned that Facebook had emerged as the top site for wildlife trafficking in the Philippines with thousands of endangered crocodiles, snakes and turtles illegally traded in just three months.

Indonesia is one of the world's most biodiverse countries making it a lucrative market for the illegal trade in wildlife, which has brought some endangered species to the brink of extinction, activists say.

In November, Indonesian police arrested several smugglers who stuffed more than 120 exotic birds into drain pipes.

TRAFFIC has also warned that the illicit sale of pangolins has seen thousands of the critically endangered animals smuggled out of Indonesia every year.

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