Why is GAFI needed

Chimps

Background:
There are two species of the genus Pan- the Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) which has four sub-species and the Bonobo (Pan paniscus). Both chimpanzees and bonobo are of a similar size wth males being 30-61 kg in weight and females being about 35%less. Both species have black faces as adults, black fur, arms as long as their legs and no tail.

Based on DNA testing it is thought that chimpanzee and bonobos diverged about 1.3 milion years ago, with their common ancestor living in the Congo basin.

Chimpanzee ancestors spread through the drier forests and woodlands in a great arc from east Africa to West Africa, north of the Congo river. Meanwhile the bonobo ancestors stayed put in the south of the Congo river where habitat became increasingly wetter encouraging the bonobo to adapt its bioolgy and behaviour to survive.

Conservation Status:

The most recent estimated total population of wild chimpanzees is 173,000-300,000 and this figure seems to be reducing in many but not all areas. The two West African subs-species have the lowest numbers which is consistent with the deforestation taking palce in that region. There are a number of threats to the chimapanzees:

• Selective logging. Light logging causes a temporary distrubance but more intensive or repeated logging causes mounting disruption to the forests ecosystem, degrading its integrity, opening it up to drying winds and sunshine, thereby increasing its vulnerability to fire.
• Access. Increased access to forests via roads built for mining, logging and oil extraction encourages hunting, especially where there is a commercial trade in bushmeat.
• Farming: Once access is gained it is an attraction to farmers who reduce the forest to create farmland, plus increase the pressure on chimpazees from hunting. Forests are being fragmented as the mosaic of villages and farms expand.
• Oil extraction and mining. These are depleting local ecosystems and bringing working populations into new areas with the increased need for food. Hunting is inevitable in these areas.
• Disease. Chimpanzees are vulnerable to human-carried disease.

Chimpanzees are finding it hard to cope with all the varied threats placed upon them. They are increasingly isolated, in conflict with humans for land and resources, they are prime targets for hunting and they have no resistance to human born diseases.

Some information about chimpanzees

Habitat:
• Chimpanzees live in a wide variety of habitats from humid evergreen forests, mosaic woodland, deciduous forest to dry savannah woodland. These are at varying heights rising from sea level in West Africa to 2,600 metres in East Africa, hence they show many signs of adaptability and opportunism.

Eating:
• Chimpanzees eat a wide variety of foods, from fruits, flowers, seeds, some young leaves, algae, mushrooms, honey, and a variety of small mammals and invertebrates. As many as 330 food types can be eaten in one year.
• With such a varied diet and huge geographical range it is no surprise that chimpanzees have variable foraging behaviour. A community of chimpanzees restrict themselves to about 6-15 km square within which it apears that females have a small section at the heart of the defended range of the males. A community which could be anywhere from 20-106 individuals divides into separate foraging parties and will be very mobile travelling up to 4 km per day foraging for food.

Hunting:
• Chimpanzees hunt at least 32 species of small mammals, including the red colobus monkey, forest monkeys, baboons, tree pangolin, elephant shrews and various duiker. It is almost always the adult males who hunt with the meat shared between community members, particularly in response to begging. Chimpanzees seem to ‘binge’ hunt, which means they hunt almost daily for a while then it becomes much less frequent. One theory for this is that it may be rooted in social psychology with hunting being a ‘craze’ or ‘fad’ during which the animals reinforce each other's memory of recent hunts. Perhaps this enthusiasm ebbs away when all the easily killed prey have been caught.

Social interaction:
• Young female chimpanzees leave their natal communities and join another before breeding, helping to spread the gene pool. There is evidence to suggest that some males also leave their natal community for another one.
• In chimpanzee males, there are many interactions, they closely associate with one another, grooming and co-operating in hunting, patrolling borders, stalking, occasionally killing chimpanzees from other communities and guarding females.

Click an ape to learn about the current status and threats

• Gorillas • Orangutans • Bonobos