Recipes for Survival_English_tcm46-28192

WSPA/APE ALLIANCERECIPES FOR SURVIVALcontentious population estimates (Bowen-Jones & Pendry, 1999), but across Africa, asmany as 3,000 – 6,000 great apes and many more monkeys are being killed annually(WWF, 2003) – more than are kept in zoos and laboratories worldwide.Ape populations are declining in 96% of protected areas where they are being studied,and without even assessing the contribution of habitat loss, most are faced withextinction in the next 10 – 50 years, (Marshall et al, 2000). Apes are hunted by humansin 62% of all protected areas; prevalence of snaring and armed conflict in protectedareas amounts to 57% and 70% respectively. There are 33 national parks and 308other conservation areas in Africa containing ape populations. The protection affordedthe great apes by international conventions, such as CITES, makes both hunting andtrading them illegal (Marshall et al, 2000).Little research has been conducted outside protected areas, but the increased levelof poaching in conjunction with commercial logging activities would suggest an evenbleaker situation than is widely perceived.Apes, and great apes in particular, are attractive to hunters because of their large sizeand high volume of meat per unit effort. Subsistence hunting of great apes is alreadyunsustainable, and further targeting by commercial hunters will guarantee extinction.Every square kilometre of forest that is logged represents the loss of habitat for oneape (Marshall et al, 2000).Low population sizes and reproductive rates, as well as long-term infant dependencyand stress sensitivity, make the great apes vulnerable to even small increases inmortality levels. A female ape typically has a reproductive rate a quarter that of othermammals and will produce offspring (from the age of 15) only every 5 – 8 years(Marshall et al, 2000). It therefore takes a long time to replace a single individual lostfrom the population.Female apes are selectively hunted, because they pose less risk to hunters than do males,who are likely to charge even when shot. With a generation time ranging from 15 to nearly30 years, each adult female lost represents some 2 – 6 lost offspring in the next 15 – 30years, and so gender selection accelerates population loss (Marshall et al, 2000).Stochastic factors such as food supply, mating success, random catastrophes (forexample, drought and fire), erosion of genetic diversity, hunting and human disturbanceare severely threatening to all apes (Marshall et al, 2000). Ape social structure can alsoexacerbate the impact of hunting; infanticide of infants emigrating from a group whosesilverback has been killed is common (Fossey, 1983).At least some populations of seven African great ape sub-species (Western, Central, andboth Eastern chimpanzees* see taxonomic note in Preface and on p.37), bonobos,Western and Eastern lowland gorillas and mountain gorillas) inhabit countries afflicted bycivil unrest, where firearms are ubiquitous and law enforcement is weak or non-existent.It is estimated that 12 – 17 mountain gorilla deaths, representing 3.7 – 5.2% of theVirungas population, were accountable to military activity between 1992 and 2000(WWF, 2003).For poachers, new territories are much more productive, because chimps and gorillashave less fear and are less vigilant. Some hunters in Southern Cameroon confirmedthey had wiped out local gorillas near their base camp within six months of itsestablishment; one successful hunter in Ouesso, Republic of Congo claimed a rateof 3 – 4 gorillas per week (WSPA/ENVIRO-PROTECT, 1996).Population estimates for all eight African great apes sub-species, as presented by WWF,are shown in Table 5.At the IUCN Primate Specialist Group Workshop on Western Equatorial Africa’s apes,held in Brazzaville in May 2005, there was a reluctance to give new population figuresuntil new surveys had been conducted (Tutin et al, 2005). Nevertheless, here followsa review of various authors’ past attempts.Chimpanzee Pan troglodytesChimpanzees are present in 21 African countries and are believed to have declinedfrom 2 million to 115,000 this century (Marshall et al, 2000).PRIMATE BUSHMEATWSPA/APE ALLIANCE50Below: Mountaingorillas are notnormally killed forbushmeat, but maydie in antelopetraps or due tocivil war.51© Ian Redmond