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The Nigeria-Cameroon Chimpanzee faces extinction as it fights a losing battle against innumerable threats ABHIJIT MOHANTY

- Abhijit Mohanty

CHIMPANZEES, WHO share about 98 per cent of their genes with humans, are fast heading towards extinction. Among the rarest subspecies is the Nigeria-Cameroon Chimpanzee—less than 6,000 are left in the forests north of the Sanga River in Cameroon and in southwestern Nigeria. It has been designated as a critically endangered species by the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and if urgent steps are not taken, scientists say it will become extinct in less than two decades.

The threats to their existence are many. In the drier parts of their habitat range such as the Mbam Djerem National Park, the Bamenda Highlands in Cameroon and Gashaka Gumti and Mambilla in Nigeria, pastoralists have encouraged forest fires to provide more grazing land for their livestock, which are subsequently being converted to farmlands. Habitat destruction has increased noise distrubances, forcing the Nigeria-Cameroon Chimpanzees to move into areas occupied by other chimpanzee communities, where they face aggression, resulting in fatalities.

Conservation biologists Jennifer Arubemi Agaldo, Gwom Thomas Gwom and Paul Tersoo Aperverga conducted a survey in 2011-2012 and found the habitat areas littered with spent cartridges, wire snares and logged trees. This indicates that chimpanzees are under serious threat from hunting and poaching activities, and the presence of logged wood indicates habitat destruction and degradation.

Bushmeat and habitats