Primates under threat
The main threat to the welfare of individual primates and the conservation of their species is human activity. All great apes – gorillas, chimps, bonobos and orangutans are under imminent threat of extinction. Born Free projects focus on gorillas and chimps. Individual animals are exploited and their habitat is destroyed.
Habitat destruction
Vast areas of forest are devastated by logging companies, destroying chimpanzee and gorilla habitats. Increase accessibility to the forests opens up routes for poachers.
Bushmeat poaching
Chimps, gorillas, monkeys and other wildlife are killed for their meat and body parts, which are used to make tourist ‘curios’. ‘Bushmeat’ used to have a low impact, but increased use of guns and the opening up of forest access routes has escalated the killing of apes for food for the international commercial industry.
Live trade
- This is Gabon when she came to the Wildlife Centre in a small plastic bag.
There is a flourishing trade in primates especially baby chimps as exotic pets, circus performers and as photographic props. To capture a wild baby chimp, its mother and other relatives are killed. The traumatised orphans are often malnourished, vulnerable to disease and suffer abuse and isolation.
Gabon (pictured left) was a year and a half old when she was confiscated by Limbe Wildlife Centre and weighed only 1.5 kg. Gabon was so badly under nourished that she couldn't even stand when she came.
Unfortunately, Gabon died from a severe respiratory infection, despite months of care at the centre. She had recovered so well and already weighed 10 kg, but malnutrition at an early age can leave permanent damage.
Captive Exploitation
Chimps are bred in captivity for use in medical and military research, for zoos and the entertainment industry including TV and films. Infant chimps are removed from their mothers for hand-rearing and some trainers are known to be abusive. The chimps can only be handled for a few years and can end up in squalid zoos, research labs or are euthanased.
Conservation Status
The IUCN1 Red List, which lists all rare species of animals, classes the chimpanzee and Eastern lowland gorilla as ‘endangered’. This means the species both ‘face a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future’.
1International Union for Conservation of Nature
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