Tag: Chimpanzee

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Leprosy identified in wild Chimpanzees for the first time

Leprosy has been identified by an international team of scientists in two countries in west africa – Ivory coast and Guinea-Bissau.

Chimpanzees showing the effect of leprosy

Leprosy has never been documented in wild Chimpanzees and the strain in each country was different (suggesting that the two causes are different.

Seemingly, one of the hardest things about studying leprosy is that it will not grow in lab conditions. It must either be harvested from animals or on occasion the feet of mice. As a result most studies are done on people with the disease. The Ivory coast strain has a history in Ethiopia and medieval Europe so there is some research still to be done. It has not yet been identified if it was transmitted from local villages or if it was brought to this part of Africa by tourists.

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Chimpanzees medical treatments seen again

I hope all the people reading this are aware of the intelligence of chimpanzees. Indeed, this intelligence has been known for some time. Altruistic acts have been recorded in studies – going back to Jane Goodall’s seminal first study in Gombe stream.

This time, scientists have observed chimpanzees in Gabon applying insects to each others wounds – in the same way that we would use medicine. Now while medicinal uses have been seen before this is the first use of this sort that has been seen.

Back in 1965 Jane Goodall started to see in her studies, the use of various plants as medicines. In this instance, there was a specific leaf that they would eat when not feeling well – importantly, the leaf was not chewed as is normal. when researchers did tests on the leaf, they found it contained a specific chemical which was capable of killing a range of bacteria, fungi, and nematodes

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Chimpanzees observed treating wounds of fellow chimpanzees with crushed insects

In the coastal National park of Loango – Gabon, over the course of a study of a group of chimpanzees, 19 times chimpanzees were seen catching a spefic insect out of the air, chewing it, and then inserting it into injuries on wounded fellow members of the group.

Given the relative simplicity of the treatment, any chimpanzee can apply it, but this looks like the beginning of medical treatments

A number of insects seem to have a positive impacts when applied to skin, and it is thought that these insects have an anti inflammatory effect, allowing the injury to heal faster.

The injuries are almost always as a result of fights between different groups of chimpanzees.

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First known albino chimpanzee was born in Africa this summer. Unfortunately it was killed

Many species can have albinism. That is: a lower amount of pigmentation or indeed a complete lack of pigmentation. From white lions and white deer, or indeed even white grizzly bears – possibly the initial way that Polar bears evolved, albinism is not rare. Humans are also capable of having this condition – evidence is clear that humans originated in Africa, suggesting that all white humans are descended from people who had this condition.

This is unfortunately an image of the infant after it was killed by its family

Indeed, I have seen an albino child in an African village – very white, despite having 2 black parents.

Never-the-less, albino chimpanzees are rare. Now it should be noted that this group that the chimpanzee was seen in has a well documented propensity for infanticide – so it is unclear if this would be the natural reaction to an albino chimpanzee birth.

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Gains in the Virunga national park of the DRC are encouraging but threats continue

For the last 3 years there has been a significant baby boom in the forests of the Virungas. This is highly encouraging for the long term survival of the mountain gorillas that live here.

Unfortunately many threats remain. Parts of the park are potentially about to be reclassified for mining, and there are invading armed groups in various parts of the forest.

Currently, the DRC section of the park contains roughly 350 gorillas, though this number includes all mountain and lowland gorillas. However, the armed groups often make money by hunting wildlife both for bushmeat and the pet trade.

In recent years, Mountain gorillas have been moved from critically endangered, to the endangered list. However, this generally is in relation to the reduction of the population over the last few years. If the population reaches a small size, then reductions of any level are likely to wipe them out. This has not happened, thankfully, but given a population of only 350 animals, it is foolish to think that this wildlife population is out of danger, quite the contrary, it would take very little for this population to disappear – STILL and so we must not relax.

Current threats thought to exist for the park long term, do not worry about poaching, so much as land lost to oil and mineral extraction. Remember that an area can be deforested in a matter of a few weeks, it can take a century for the forest to return.

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First documented attack on Gorillas by a group of Chimpanzees

Despite the ridiculous reputation that the Gorilla has been given, of a terrifying beast that will rip you apart, they are generally very gentle animals. Conversely, Chimpanzees have been shown as a largely gentle species, very similar to humans. This is also quite untrue.

Wild chimpanzees hunt animals to eat meat, where as gorillas do not

Chimpanzees are incredibly effective hunters, and while much of their diet is vegetarian, and in captivity they are not usually given meat, in the wild they do hunt with relative frequency even if the majority of their diet is vegetable matter.

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Deforestation particularly in protected reserves has happened at an increasing rate in the democratic Republic of Congo

Unfortunately deforestation in the largest remaining African rainforest seems to be going on more and more. Unfortunately not only is this happening in general, at a large quantity of this over the last two decades has also occurred within protected areas.

If this happens across the DRC, there will be many problems particularly as the amount of carbon dioxide released would largely lock in in an unacceptably large amount of temperature rise. However in the natural world, it would also severely damaged the long-term future of gorillas chimps and the last of the bonobos.

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A reduction of African great apes of 80% by 2050?

Current prediction is great apes will lose 80% of their habitats by 2050

Of the great ape species, 3 out of the 4 non human species live in Africa. This is why it is so alarming the current estimates are that by 2050 great habitat will have reduced by 80%.

This is also a huge concern for the rest of the world. An 80% reduction in rainforest cover in Africa could make halting global warming impossible. 

Obviously there are multiple strands of global warming and halting species loss. Unfortunately this could sink both problems into impossible or near impossible to solve.

Furthermore, there are other sad facts about this idea. Farmland rarely benefits the people who live in its vicinity. The huge plantations of Indonesia have destroyed the rainforests but they have not lifted living standards, indeed in many places they have eradicated the ability for locals to live – forcing them to leave their home.

Game reserves require significant staff to look after the guests. Furthermore, there are a great deal of resources that can be extracted without destroying the trees above. This allows locals to increase their standard of living, while at the same time allowing the rainforests to stay standing and the wildlife that lives there to continue to thrive.

It would seem that it should be possible to dig deep mines under rainforests without cutting the forest down first. Obviously we come back to the problem of poaching that might increase with the mine workers, but the simple fact is that most mines do not disturb the surface (except for the mine entrance). It likely increases mine costs, but given the wealth of minerals that are thought to lie under the Congo rainforest it should be more than worth it.

I do not want to have to explain to my grand children, why there are no great rainforests left in Africa. I have only visited one rainforest (that of the Udzungwas in East Tanzania), but apart from the environmental services that these places provide there are many parts of the planet which rapidly turn to desert if you remove the rainforests covering the ground.

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Great apes predicted to loose 90% of their range in the coming decades

It is thought that between global warming and habitat loss, 90% of the remaining great ape range will be lost – potentially as early as 2050!

Wild Bonobo resting in a tree Photo taken by Alexander Georgiev

The loss of these rainforests will make climate change mitigation far harder, and I do not wish for my grandchildren to grow up in a world where there is no such thing as a large rainforest. As elsewhere, the loss of the apex species such as great apes both makes conservation harder, and imperils the ecosystem as a whole, as less visitors come so there is less money for protection.

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