Wildlife and conservation new, wild travel information and links for booking
Chimpanzees and Gorillas share much of the forests of central and Western Africa. It is therefore not surprising that they might meet from time to time.
As babies, all sorts of creatures spend time together. In Gombe stream the Jane Goodall study documented Chimpanzees and baboons playing together as young.
All species are important, often reintroductions have failed because a small unnoticed animal was missed. Over time, we will amass pages for as many species as possible. However, just as important is seeing how species are closely related. As such as well as looking at species from a specific ecosystem or family, we will also include family trees of many of the families on earth. It should be noted, that this is to help you find wildlife you wish to see, so will never link to every species. In either way, these links to these will be placed at the top.
The cross River gorilla (picture above) is a critically endangered subspecies of the Western lowland gorilla species. The cross River gorilla are scattered in at least 11 groups across the lowland montane forests and rainforests of Cameroon and Nigeria, an area of 3,000 square miles, or a little smaller than Puerto Rico. There are only 200-300 that remain of this subspecies.While there are some physical traits that are different between these species, the cross River gorilla has become a Highland specialist. Although known to have interbred in the past, genetic analysis suggests this stopped more than 400 years ago. Changes in climate may well have been the catalyst to stop the interbreeding.
In this way, the cross River gorillas and the mountain gorillas have similar habits and ecosystem niches. In this way, it could be suggested that cross River gorillas are simply 50 years behind mountain gorillas in the sense that 40 years ago, there were only around 250 mountain gorillas – this population has increased to over 1000, so clearly it isn’t too late for the cross River gorillas numbers to recover.
Could a similar recovery take place? Perhaps following the pattern set up by Diane Fossey for tourism of the mountain gorillas, might work?
Western lowland gorillas have a wild population in a fast healthier position, with an estimated 100,000 remaining. Unfortunately though, this is a very tough estimate as they live in some of the hardest to reach jungles so an accurate count is hard. It is however, thought that this gorilla population has seen a 60% reduction over the last 10-25 years. It is thought that if the pressures of placing and diseases were removed this population would recover in about 75 years (of course these pressures are unlikely to disappear, and with the loss of rainforest there may be nowhere for these gorillas to live if they did recover.
Western lowland gorillas are closely related to cross river gorillas, in the same way that eastern lowland gorillas are closely related to mountain gorillas. However, retaining these different subspecies is highly important as they are adapted to the different conditions where they live.
It is unfortunate that there is little positive news on either of these species at the current time, but many people are working on it.
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.
There are many threats facing the great apes of Africa, from habitat destruction and fragmentation, to hunting for bush meat. Unfortunately, it is now thought that Chimpanzees gorillas and Bonobos face a still greater threat (assuming humans avoid killing off what remains of their population) the loss of about 94% of their remaining habitat due to forest die off from the warming that we are creating.
Even under our most rosy scenario, they stand to loose 85% of their range.
The same studies suggest that as areas become unsuitable, there are likely to be other that become suitable. Unfortunately, dealing with slow adapting animals this will not help at all without significant assistance from humans.
What is even more scary is that this loss would occur by 2050.
I find this horrifying. I have not been able to yet visit any wild great ape populations, and now it looks as though their future is severely limited. It also looks like, by the time my children have children the huge forests of Africa teeming with wildlife, will be no more.
We must act now!
Human communities which live alongside great ape populations must benefit. Of course these communities must not grow and crowd out the wildlife, but if a similar system can be set up that worked for the mountain gorillas, perhaps many of the great apes could be saved and at the same time, pull millions of Africans living in poverty, into more sustainable and profitable lives.
This is not something that must be left to African governments. Indeed, it also must not be just left to tourism. Governments around the world, need to help in this work.
As well as replanting and recovering rainforests across the globe, the human population as a whole needs to work together to save the remaining tropical rainforests which are so precious to our future and that of our descendants.
A French company Biotope is working on sustainable cohabitation between chimpanzees and local communities in the highlands of western central Guinea.
The west African Chimpanzee once numbered around 2 million. Currently there are roughly 500,000, but without urgent action that number is liable to move quickly down to close to zero.
Conservation for its own sake is all very well for those people living on the other side of the world. For those who live close by it is a different matter. Ending the population explosion that is occurring in Africa, is essential both for the human and wildlife populations that share this continent. Similar programs could do the same thing in south America and Asia.
I am well aware that even if successful, this website will only be part of the solution, but I hope that with your support we can do some good.
Gorillas are threatened with extinction. We hope against hope, that these incredible animals – closely related to us, and so similar in many ways can be saved.
The Grauers gorilla, also known as the Eastern lowland gorilla (confusingly often found in the mountains, just not exclusively as the mountain gorilla is) is a close relative of the mountain gorilla.
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.
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!
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.
Recent census of the Mountain gorillas between the two remaining areas of habitat counted 1063, a number that has risen from perhaps only 350 in the 1980s. The idea of a critically endangered growing by 300% in population size in only 40 years is incredible.
