Welcome to the third blog posting on the Endangered Species Blog. Today, I will be highlighting a fascinating energetic creature whose population has declined significantly over the past decade. You may ask yourself, why such a significant decline in the past decade. To that question, I would say a one-word answer: humans. Yes, you hear me correctly, humans are causing the closest genetic ancestors to go extinct. It is reported that Chimpanzees are genetically closest to humans and share 98.6% of DNA.
In 2017, Smithsonian Magazine reported that the population of Western chimpanzees had declined by 80 percent in 25 years. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, chimpanzees are declared as "critically endangered" on the list. In addition, the report indicated that there are an estimated 21,300 to 55,600 individuals in the wild. The Western Chimpanzee is a subspecies of the common chimpanzee. It inhabits western Africa, mainly in Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, and Sierra Leone, and they can be found in neighboring countries. Of the four chimpanzee species, the western chimpanzee is at the most risk for extinction as a result of its exponential decline over the past decade.
The main cause of the decrease in the population is large tracts of chimpanzee habitat that are being destroyed and lost. The saddest part, much of what land remains for the chimps is in the crosshairs of agriculture, industry, and infrastructure development. The slowly dying Chimpanzee population shares the land with the fastest-growing human population of western Africa. Most other chimpanzees live in dense jungles, but Western chimpanzees live in forest-savanna mosaics and open grasslands mixed with dry gallery forests.
Why do we need Chimpanzees for a prosperous ecosystem? According to the New England Primate Conservancy, chimpanzees are unique to ecosystems because they are capable of eating far larger seeds than most animals in their ecosystem. The plant species with seeds depend on large animals such as chimps to spread their genetics. When chimpanzees consume the fruit and defecate the seeds elsewhere in the forest, the plant species will begin to grow. Without chimpanzees, plants will have a hard time populating vast areas of land in a short amount of time.
The main cause of the decline in the population can be attributed to urbanization and infrastructure development that diminishes chimp's habitats. Climate change can also be attributed to the decline of the population because it is making some savanna areas uninhabitable for chimps due to increasingly dry and hot weather. Another factor that is causing the population to decline is the use of chimps for bushmeat which is an important source of protein. Many hunters unselectively target any wild animal in the forest and end up killing chimps, gorillas, and bonobos. The use of chimps for bushmeat is not a sustainable food source because the population is falling faster than it is growing. This has to stop without Chimps the ecosystem would slowly start to deteriorate.
If chimpanzees go extinct, scientists will not have lab rats with a very similar genetic makeup as a human. All the research completed with Chimpanzees will ultimately be useless without the ability to complete more research that stems from previous knowledge. It will also cause the spreading of plants to slow because chimpanzees won't be dropping the seeds.
The current conservation effort created by the IUCN sets out nine strategies that will hopefully be implemented between 2020 and 2030. These strategies include filling research gaps, ensuring chimpanzees are considered in land use planning, improving legal protection, and raising awareness of the plight of western chimpanzees. The plan fights to protect large portions of the remaining chimpanzee habitat in West Africa. This land is suitable for oil palm production, so without a voice for chimpanzees in the land use planning process, experts fear the industrialization of the land. The use of the Geographic Information System Tools can be beneficial to use to plan conservation efforts. Using this technique would allow conservation biologists to visualize areas of sensitive species that are currently unprotected. Consequently, this would allow them to fight and organize legislation to protect the land.
How can you help? Here are 5 easy ways:
1. Adopt a chimpanzee:
https://gifts.worldwildlife.org/gift-center/gifts/Species-Adoptions/Chimpanzee.aspx?sc=AWY1800OQ18317A01909RX&_ga=2.98659998.1807672477.1611868711-1711408048.1609167893
2. Donate to the conservation effort:
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/chimpanzee
3. Mail your politicians voicing your opinion
4. Post on social media to create awareness about the decline in population of western chimpanzees
5. Only travel if it meets concepts of ecotourism
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