West Africa’s chimpanzee population has dropped dramatically since the 1960s, falling from an estimated 1 million to fewer than 300,000 today. THE CHIMPANZEE population is the fast declining in the country. However, Amarasekaran was able to go on the radio and make a plea to local communities that their national animal was under threat. With habitat loss, hunting and wildlife trafficking taking their toll, chimps have now disappeared completely from four countries in the region. Twenty-three organizations operate as part of the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA), which was established in 2000 and now looks after 915 chimps in 13 countries. So, he says, “we have decided to focus on the 5,000-6,000 chimps that are still left in the wild and … on stopping them coming to the sanctuary.”, Tully says he agrees. “If we didn’t have Tacugama, where would we be taking all these captured chimpanzees?” he says. Small, relict populations are found in Burundi and south-eastern Sudan. Please send us comments about ways that we can improve the content on this page. “You focus on the goal, not about who did it.”, Babar Turay, a conservation manager at Sierra Leone’s National Protected Area Authority, an agency within the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security, has worked closely with Amarasekaran. If you value this objective and impact-driven journalism, please consider becoming a sustaining member. While chimp welfare may be their key purpose, many sanctuaries fill a much wider role too. In 1999, Raballand took the post of project manager at Chimpanzee Conservation Center (CCC) in Guinea’s Haut Niger National Park, which now boasts the highest density of chimpanzees of any West African protected area. 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ENMs for each population were also projected under three different climate change scenarios for years 2020… “Police and other law enforcement agencies don’t want to arrest someone who has a live chimpanzee if there’s nowhere to put it — they don’t want to be taking care of a baby chimp for the next 50 years.”. David Greer, who also worked in primate conservation for 25 years, including a stint at the WWF and running a wildlife sanctuary, says he agrees that sanctuaries play a pivotal role in chimp conservation. A chimpanzee reaches towards the camera at Tchimpounga in the Republic of the Congo. Blue: Eastern chimpanzee distribution. © 2020 WWF - World Wide Fund For Nature© 1986 Panda Symbol WWF – World Wide Fund For Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund)® “WWF” is a WWF Registered Trademark Creative Commons license. Chimpanzee, common chimpanzee, robust chimpanzee; Chimpanzés (Fr); Chimpancé (Sp). By Gretchen Vogel Mar. The dramatic decline in the Gombe chimpanzee population is largely due to a significant reduction in suitable forested habitat for the great apes. This version of the page will remain live for reference purposes as we work to update the content across our website. Every day, Mongabay reporters bring you news from nature’s frontline. Chimpanzees are great apes found across central and West Africa. By integrating communities into conservation initiatives, Raballand says, people become “drivers of change” and develop a much greater respect for local biodiversity, leading to far fewer conflicts between humans and chimpanzees. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page. “We work very closely with the government and they don’t look at us as an outside entity. It gave him the leverage to push for changes to Sierra Leone’s out-of-date wildlife laws too, and give the new national symbol greater protection against traffickers and poachers. One of Amarasekaran’s key achievements has been persuading the government to declare the chimpanzee the national animal. Recently, when animal traffickers were tipped off that the authorities were closing in, they fled. The increasing human population is encroaching ever deeper into even protected areas of chimpanzee habitats, and large scale logging is now a major threat to the forest primates of Africa. “We have gone through rebel wars, we have gone through Ebola, we have gone through a lot of civil strife — we never left.”. 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WWF treats priority species as one of the most ecologically, economically and/or culturally important species on our planet. “To me, this underscores the importance of long-term care for confiscated primates — without this piece of the puzzle, law enforcement can break down.”. 7, 2019 , 2:00 PM. New technical guide describes how to run a participatory, consensus-led evaluation of ecosystem services, bringing together a diverse range of ... Biogeographic realm A dwindling tribe of chimpanzees in Guinea that gained global fame for uncanny abilities to use tools has a glimmer of hope after its last fertile female gave birth. Please note: This page has been archived and its content may no longer be up-to-date. Today, the largest populations are found in Côte d'Ivoire and in Guinea. “Sanctuaries quite simply haven’t got the time or the income to be carrying out audits and collect evidence and stats,” she says. University of Nottingham BBDTP CASE 2020 CASE Projects Investigating the Relationship of Overall Health with a Focus on Cardiovascular Health, Serum Biomarkers and Vitamin D Levels in the European Chimpanzee Population. Whether nonhuman primates exhibit population-level handedness remains a topic of considerabe theoretical and empirical debate. ... Eleven hectares of forest have been planted in 2020, and 26 hectares are scheduled for 2021. As a result, many of the bigger funders simply won’t give to sanctuaries. Chimpanzees and bonobos are sister species that diverged around 1.8 million years ago as the Congo River formed a geographic boundary and they evolved in separate environments. Within 30 minutes they were inundated with phone calls about the poachers’ whereabouts. Chimpanzees vary considerably in size and appearance, but they stand approximately 1–1.7 meters (3–5.5 feet) tall when erect and weigh about 32–60 kg (70–130 pounds). Others will have suffered at the hands of hunters, victims of a lucrative trade that sees adults shot for bushmeat and  juveniles sold on the black market to end up as pets or as entertainment in hotels, circuses and zoos in Africa and beyond. At the forefront of the battle to save the western chimpanzee is a network of sanctuaries. When chimpanzees encounter humans, it’s usually bad news for the chimps. “Do you just capture them and return them to the forest? We depend on support from users like you. The Tacugama sanctuary in Sierra Leonne was set up by Sri Lankan-born Bala Amarasekaran in 1995, and since then its success has been based on a mixture of hard work and shrewd diplomacy. But Raballand says she remains hopeful. With more people living around the national park, surrounding forests have been cleared to make way for houses and farms, reducing the national park to a 35 square-kilometer island forest. The chimpanzee population within the park was esti-mated to be around 3000 individuals in the early 1980s, it declined to about 300 individuals in late 2010 (N'Goran et al., 2012). As a result, sanctuaries are taking extra precautions to minimize the risk of coronavirus affecting the animals, with many staff remaining on site 24/7 to reduce the risk of bringing the chimps into contact with the virus. Rehabilitating and releasing a chimpanzee back into the wild is expensive. One continued subject of discussion is whether evidence of population-level handedness in primates is confined to studies in captive animals or whether it is in both captive and wild subjects. This theoretical competition for funds is another reason why sanctuaries have been criticized, but it’s a point Tully is quick to refute. Mongabay is a U.S.-based non-profit conservation and environmental science news platform. “If you don’t create some sort of a value for the people … in the areas that we are asking them to protect, how are they going to protect these places?” he says. sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Sanctuaries are sometimes considered to be some roadside circus,” Amarasekaran says. “In countries that don’t have sanctuaries, wildlife law enforcement is a lot weaker,” Tully says. The chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), also known as the common chimpanzee, robust chimpanzee, or simply chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. Working to sustain the natural world for the benefit of people and nature. “We are a very proud organization,” he says. When sanctuaries accept an animal, he says, part of the deal with the authorities must be that the poachers, traders and those who illegally own chimpanzees are prosecuted and proper sentences are handed down. Afrotropical These safe havens can have a dramatic effect on the countries where they are established, caring for individual animals while also working to help stabilize populations, tighten laws, and stop the illegal trade in wildlife from flourishing. “There’s just not enough funding and people view each other as competition,” she says. “The money for conservation and the money for animal welfare are largely two different pots of money,” he says, with few donors giving to both. Green: Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee distribution Western Chimpanzees Have Declined By 80 Percent Over The Past 25 Years The largest population of these animals—the only critically endangered chimp subspecies—sits in a … The population of the western chimpanzee once spanned from southern Senegal all the way east to the Niger River. Then a mining company showed up, Why do Eurasian badgers live with foxes? Ribeirinhos win right to waterside Amazon homeland lost to Belo Monte dam, Critical temperature threshold spells shorter lives for tropical trees, Liberia gave villagers control over their forests. Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) mother with youngster, captive, Chimfunshi Orphanage, Zambia. At Tacugama, Amarasekaran says, we “don’t just focus on confiscations and running an orphanage; we are movement, we  do a lot more.”. Guinean Moist Forests, Congolian Coastal Forests, Cameroon Highlands Forests, Northeastern Congo Basin Moist Forests, Central Congo Basin Moist Forests, Western Congo Basin Moist Forests, Albertine Rift Montane Forests, Yellow: Western chimpanzee distribution Today, there are fewer than 300,000. The Maryland Zoo is welcoming a baby female chimpanzee to first-time mom Raven, a crucial addition to the Baltimore zoo’s chimpanzee population. hbspt.cta.load(5981609, '8f4c6e6c-f5b2-40c0-926e-1af2470257f3', {}); Mongabay is a reader-supported conservation and environmental science news service. They have strong connections with the government and have spent years pushing to make changes happen and get government officials to realize that these chimpanzees have value as an iconic species,” Tully says. This page was last changed on 21 August 2020, at 21:36. This page was last edited on 16 December 2020, at 12:22 (UTC). The eastern chimpanzee ranges from the Ubangi River/Congo River in Central African Republic and DRC, to western Uganda, Rwanda and western Tanzania. Dryness? With human activities, like agriculture, forcing chimpanzees out of their habitats, and while the great apes were also being hunted […] The total population is thought to be about 21,000-55,000 individuals. “The destruction of the environment is at a level that is unseen anywhere else in Africa,” says Estelle Raballand, who has worked in West Africa for the last 25 years, the last three spearheading the push to create the Akatia sanctuary near the Ivorian capital, Abidjan. FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. sified forests. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is humans' closest living relati… Learn about the chimpanzee, as well as the threats this species faces, what WWF is doing to protect its future, and how you can help. Sudan is a large, but sparsely populated country compared to the rest of Africa.It is the largest nation in Africa and covers 967,495 square miles (2,505,813 square kilometers), and is landlocked except its northeast border that touches the Red Sea. Humans are wiping out chimpanzee cultures. Subsistence hunting of chimpanzees as a source of meat is nothing new, but there is now a thriving but unsustainable commercial market for bushmeat (the meat of … The few chimps that are confiscated are sent to the local zoo, which have neither the capacity not the skill to care for them, she says. Chimpanzees are one of our closest relatives, sharing an estimated 98% of their genes with humans. “Great apes are very susceptible to human respiratory diseases, as we share 98% of the same DNA,” Tully says. “A lot of the sanctuaries work in a bubble and aren’t necessarily as collaborative as they could be.”, Most are reluctant to be audited, he says, or reveal details about the activities they are undertaking, their performance and their conservation impact. Sierra Leone only has around 6% of its natural forest left and it’s impossible to release chimps into an area where other wild chimps already exist, and pointless re-releasing them where they can’t be given any protection. We hope to bring 10-20 more in 2020. In recent years, Côte d’Ivoire has become a center for animal trafficking, as efforts to create a national chimp sanctuary have stalled. “It’s unfair to think that sanctuaries are not doing enough,” Amarasekaran says. In the 1970’s, for example, records indicated a population size of around 200. Sanctuary managers are passionate, Greer says, but they’re rarely traditionally trained conservationists. While Amarasekaran describes reintroductions as “every sanctuary manager’s dream,” the reality can be different. Ecotourism is also an important income stream for the project, he says. This particular species is known as the Asiatic or Iranian cheetah and it has suffered severe population decline over the last 50 years or so. “Great ape reintroductions are extremely complicated, expensive, and time-consuming, and aren’t possible in many countries because of the high risk of poaching and weak enforcement of protected areas,” he says. Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda It’s also easy to miss the point about why sanctuaries exist in the first place, she says. The government “has refused to have a sanctuary for many, many years and now they have lost almost all their forest and they’ve lost almost all their chimps,” Raballand says. Range States Chimpanzee, species of ape that, along with the bonobo, is most closely related to humans. Poaching and disease also put the wild population at risk. “[They] need to enforce the law and establish deterrents.”, “In many African countries, the laws about wildlife are sadly outdated,” says PASA director Tully. “They provide a humane setting for these animals to live out the remainders of their lives but that also comes with some responsibilities,” he says. Dramatic habitat loss by 2020 threatens the population of the planet's most endangered chimp subspecies, according to new research. Around 80% of the country’s forests were lost between 1960 and 2010. As a great ape, chimpanzees are a WWF priority species. Many arrive as the result of habitat destruction, as forests are cleared for agriculture, logging and extractive industries, as well as infrastructure developments, decimating family groups and leaving young chimps abandoned. The sanctuary helps run the national park, supplies rangers for anti-poaching and logging patrols, and contributes significantly to the local economy, buying more than 5 tons of food a month and employing 30 permanent staff. © 1986 Panda Symbol WWF – World Wide Fund For Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund), Guide to identifying ecosystem services in protected areas, Conservation of western chimpanzees in Tai National Park, Côte d'Ivoire, Conservation and monitoring of Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees in Gashaka Gumti National Park, Nigeria, Conservation of the Tongo populaton of eastern chimpanzees in the Virunga ecosystem, DRC, Supporting government efforts to supervise the management of Campo Ma’an National Park, Cameroon, and encourage sustainable use of forest resources in its buffer zone, Conservation of central chimpanzees in Mengame, Cameroon, Assisting the Ministry of Water and Forests in the Minkebe Conservation Project, a 6,000km2 area recently declared as a national park in Gabon. by Mark Hillsdon on 26 May 2020 . 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