Chimps Threatened by Illegal Hunting
1/12/98
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Title: Chimps Threatened by Illegal Hunting
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyright, contact source to reprint
Date: 1/12/98
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) --Chimpanzees already endangered by
human-carried diseases and the loss of their habitat now face
an even greater threat -- poachers who have traded spears for
automatic rifles.
Jane Goodall, the British scientist renowned for her study of
chimpanzees, said logging roads winding deep into African forests
have left chimpanzees vulnerable to the poachers, who find ready
markets for the meat at home but also as far away as Europe.
While in the past the hunters relied on nets, spears and other traditional
weapons, they now are using shotguns and automatic rifles, enabling them
to kill more quickly, she told a news conference Wednesday.
"I think the bush meat trade is probably the greatest danger in many central
and west African countries," Goodall said. "What was subsistence hunting
is now business." Together with the destruction of forests for firewood and
lumber, the hunting of chimpanzees has reduced their population to 250,000
in 21 African countries from 2 million at the turn of the century, Goodall
said.
Although chimpanzees and gorillas are protected species in the countries
where they are hunted, she said the laws are poorly enforced and demand
for the meat is wide.
Chimpanzee and gorilla are on menus in cities from Cameroon to Congo, and
as far away as Paris and Brussels, according to the World Wide Fund for
Nature. The meat is served dried, smoked and as steak or stew.
Goodall, who has studied Tanzania's chimpanzees for 38 years, said she is a
vegetarian because "I don't want to eat anything that represents fear, pain
and death."
Lumber companies owned by Germans, Britons, Japanese and Americans
are punching great networks of roads into forests, she said. Human traffic
on the roads expose chimps and gorillas to deadly diseases, including
measles and polio.
Employees of timber companies often rely on bush meat as a source of
protein, and logging trucks are known to ferry large quantities of bush meat
out to cities and towns.
A recent survey by the Wildlife Conservation Society in the Republic of
Congo found meat from 19 gorillas in a market in northern Ouesso over 11
weeks. A similar study by the International Primate Protection League
estimated 400 to 600 gorillas are killed each year in the northern Republic of
Congo.
Chimps also are maimed by hunters. In three separate study areas in the
Ivory Coast and Uganda, up to 50 percent of adults chimps had lost a hand
or a foot to snares, Goodall said.
The Jane Goodall Institute, with U.S. headquarters in Silver Springs,
Maryland, is making plans to help young people in Africa breed cane rats
to replace bush meat, Goodall said.
Goodall, who lives in England and Tanzania, was in Kenya to raise money
for conservation efforts.