Bonobos almost gone, Pygmy chimpanzee may be near extinction

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Bonobos almost gone,

Pygmy chimpanzee may be near extinction


Dec. 9, 2004  |   GLAND, Switzerland (AP) -- One of man's closest
relatives, the pygmy chimpanzee, may be much closer to extinction than
previously thought, a conservation group said Thursday.

   A study by the Worldwide Fund for Nature found that poaching and human
encroachment into the animal's natural habitat had left far fewer pygmy
chimpanzees -- or bonobos -- in Congo's Salonga National Park than
previously thought.

   "These initial results concern us greatly," said Peter Stephenson, the
great apes expert for the group, which is known as the World Wildlife
Fund in the United States. "If things are this bad here, we can assume
that across the Congo, bonobos are in crisis."

   Salonga reserve -- roughly the size of the Netherlands -- could be the
world's largest pygmy chimpanzee habitat, but authorities have been
unable to monitor it adequately because of Congo's long civil war, the
conservation group said.


   ----------

   "The war has had terrible consequences for the people and wildlife of
the Congo basin," said Lisa Steel, who is working on the Salonga
project.

   Previously, up to 50,000 pygmy chimpanzees were thought to be living
in the wild. The World Wildlife Fund hopes to revise the estimate early
next year after analyzing the study's results.

   Neighboring Rwanda twice invaded Congo, in 1996 and 1998, to hunt down
Rwandan Hutu combatants responsible for the 1994 genocide of more than
a half-million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

   The second invasion triggered a war that involved at least four other
African nations and killed an estimated 3.2 million people in eastern
Congo, territory under Rwanda's wartime control.

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/12/09/chimpanzee_near_extinction/


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