The illegal wildlife trade is one of the biggest threats to chimpanzees, now listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List, with an estimated remaining population of between 170,000 to 300,000. Yet, every four hours, one chimp is being illegally taken from the wild.
Discover new chimpanzee facts about western chimpanzees and other chimp subspecies from Africa.
How we help protect Chimpanzees
Infants are often captured for the exotic pet trade. The devastating reality of these captures is that for every individual infant taken, poachers will typically slaughter 10 chimpanzees to stop the protective adults interfering in the capture.
Read DSWF’s position on the international trade in chimpanzees.
Other threats to chimps include the illegal bushmeat trade, human-wildlife conflict, habitat destruction, and disease.
Chimps live in ‘communities’ that can have up to 150 members, though 10-15 is more typical.
Grooming helps to remove insects and dead skin. Grooming also helps to relax and bond chimps.
Chimpanzees have been observed regularly using tools to collect honey, ants, termites, nuts, and water.
Chimpanzees are members of the great apes family
Chimpanzees are a highly adaptable species – they live in a variety of habitats, including dry savanna, evergreen rainforest, mountainous forests, swamp forests and dry woodlands.
They have an advanced map in their heads of their home ranges, with knowledge of where to repeatedly find food. Every night they make a nest in a new tree, with every chimp in a separate nest other than infants or juvenile chimps, which sleep with their mothers.
David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) work to protect chimps from all these threats in High Niger National Park, Guinea. The park is home to an estimated 500 chimpanzees, making it one of seven top priority sites for chimpanzee conservation in west Africa. Threats to the chimps here include illegal logging, uncontrolled bushfires, cattle grazing, poaching, and illegal mining. We work with communities living close to the park to provide education programmes, activities that improve the local environment such as tree planting and improved sanitation, and alternative livelihoods including honey-making and gardening projects, which reduce local people’s reliance on the forest.
“We must engage with key stakeholders and local communities about how to end the illegal trade in chimpanzees and how best to disincentivise poaching. People lie at the heart of the poaching crisis, be it as consumers or as a part of the poaching cycle and yet people are also the hope and solution to resolve it.”
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