According to the BBC, citing a study in Current Biology, the population of the endangered West African chimpanzees in Ivory Coast has fallen by about 90% in less than 20 years. The Ivory Coast was thought to be one of the last strongholds for thesd chimps (Pan troglodytes verus) but rather than the expected 8,000 to 12,000 chimps, the researchers found only about 1,200. The pressure on the chimps is due in part to reduction of the forests in which they live and in part to poaching, since they are hunted for meat; both pressures come from increasing human population pressure and from a government which can not adequately protect the animals.
According to Wikipedia:
While it has long been known that modern chimpanzees use tools, recent research indicates that chimpanzee stone tool use dates to at least 4300 years ago. A recent study revealed the use of such advanced tools as spears, which West African Chimpanzees in Senegal sharpen with their teeth, being used to spear Senegal Bushbabies out of small holes in trees.Comment: I guess in a world in which genocide is still permitted to continue in Darfur and can occurred in living memory in Ruanda and Burundi, and where millions have died in violence in the Congo, the failure to protect our closest living relative species is not surprising. It is still very, very wrong! JAD
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