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Urban expansion and hunting have pushed chimpanzees, the closest relative of humanity into the animal kingdom, into increasingly wild islands, experts said Tuesday after a three-day meeting in Germany.
The four subspecies of the African primate are at risk of extinction, and at least one of them – the western chimpanzee – is declining by more than 80% in three generations.
Forty chimpanzee experts from around the world, with 300 years of field experience, have launched a collective appeal to save the only animal whose DNA overlaps by 98%.
"In the decades we have worked with wild chimpanzee communities, we have all seen our study groups isolate themselves," they said in a statement.
"Chimpanzees are reduced to living in ghettos in the forest."
Habitat loss is the biggest threat to chimpanzees and other large mammals.
Africa still has vast expanses of savannahs and undisturbed forests, but these areas are shrinking rapidly due to the growth of cities, mines, deforestation and industrial agriculture.
The continent 's human population, which numbers more than 1.2 billion, is expected to double by the mid – century and could exceed four billion by the end of the century. .
There are thousands of chimpanzees in three subspecies and about 250,000 by the Oriental chimpanzee, mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Western chimpanzees have already been eliminated in Burkina Faso, Benin, The Gambia and perhaps Togo.
"Forty years ago, we had traveled 100 km on a mud road to reach the boundaries of the park while meeting chimpanzees and elephants," said Christopher Boesch, a professor at the Max Planck Institute. evolutionary anthropology of Leipzig, Germany. Tai National Park in Cote d Ivoire.
"Nowadays, you have to reach the park's boundaries to see the first piece of forest."
Last common ancestor
Crickette Sanz, badociate professor at the University of Washington, Missouri, has been working for decades in the Goualougo Triangle in the Republic of Congo. Human encroachment and chimpanzee hunting for "bushmeat" have also changed the social life and behavior of animals.
"When we first came to Ndoki Forest, chimpanzees often approached us with curiosity," she recalls.
Now they are hiding.
"It is wise that they have changed their behavior – their survival depends on it," added Sanz.
According to a recent study, compared to chimpanzees living in virgin forests, those located in areas disturbed by humans also showed a decrease in the diversity of learned behaviors.
Scientists studying nearly 150 chimpanzee communities in 17 countries identified 31 actions – including cracking nuts, extracting termites or ants with tools, collecting honey, throwing stones as a form of communication – that were done differently from one group to the other.
The more men had created the environment (road construction, clearcutting, palm oil palm plantations) – the more these actions were uniform.
The last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees lived about seven million years ago.
"We have not evolved from bonobos or chimpanzees, but we share with them a common ancestry," said Martin Surbeck, primatologist at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, also at Leipzig.
The famous anthropologist Irven DeVore marveled at the indifference of mankind towards our closest primate cousins.
"If, during our travels in space, we should meet a creature who shares 98% of our genetic heritage, think of the money we would spend to study this species," he said. .
"Such creatures exist on Earth and we allow them to disappear."
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