If someone were to destroy your grandmother’s house in order to sell the materials for a profit would you be OK with it? Unfortunately our race, the human race, is doing that exact thing to our closest living relatives in Africa. Habitat exploitation, poaching for bush-meat as well as the introduction of new diseases is destroying the last hold out populations of chimpanzees and gorillas. At the current rate, soon there will no longer be any wild chimpanzees or gorillas and according to experts minimum of $30 million dollars is needed if we plan on conserving these species on our planet.
“This devastating mix of threats leaves us on the brink of losing some of our closest living relatives,” said Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International and chairman of the Primate Specialist Group of IUCN-The World Conservation Union’s Species Survival Commission. “Protecting gorillas and chimps is not just important in its own right. These animals are also flagship species, important symbols for vast areas of forest that are among the richest on Earth. Protecting them protects many other species as well.”
A western lowland gorilla
A western lowland gorilla baby with a silverback male.
A baby chimpanzee.
PLEASE NOTE: Photos Below are of explicit nature
Dead Chimp on to be sold in the local market for bushmeat
Gorilla head to be sold in local market
A monkey split in half; common fare alongside the logging roads of equatorial Africa
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