An assessment of chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos reveals that our economic “footprint” is the primary driver of great apes’ fate
When ecologist Hjalmar Kühl first visited the Republic of Congo in 2003, deep in the forest, he met chimpanzees whose curiosity gave away that they had never seen a human before. “You’d try to move away, and they’d come closer,” he says. “They’d just sit there watching us.”
Today it’s “basically impossible” to observe such behaviors at most field sites, Kühl says. The reason seems obvious to him. Unlike 20 years ago, Kühl now rarely finds himself far from a village, road, oil pipeline, logging area or mine. He usually has cell phone service and frequently runs into people, no matter how remote the location may seem. As the wilderness has opened up, hunting has increased; great apes have either disappeared or learned to fear and avoid humans. As Kühl says, “It tells you how much the world has changed in just that time.”
Great Apes' Biggest Threat Is Human Activity, Not Habitat Loss - Scientific American
When ecologist Hjalmar Kühl first visited the Republic of Congo in 2003, deep in the forest, he met chimpanzees whose curiosity gave away that they had never seen a human before. “You’d try to move away, and they’d come closer,” he says. “They’d just sit there watching us.”
Today it’s “basically impossible” to observe such behaviors at most field sites, Kühl says. The reason seems obvious to him. Unlike 20 years ago, Kühl now rarely finds himself far from a village, road, oil pipeline, logging area or mine. He usually has cell phone service and frequently runs into people, no matter how remote the location may seem. As the wilderness has opened up, hunting has increased; great apes have either disappeared or learned to fear and avoid humans. As Kühl says, “It tells you how much the world has changed in just that time.”
Great Apes' Biggest Threat Is Human Activity, Not Habitat Loss - Scientific American
