Chimpanzees Pan troglodytes Casey Desrosiers

Basic Information: Description: Chimpanzee faces are pinkish to black, and their bodies are covered with long black hair. Chimps do not have a tail. They have opposable thumbs which help them grasp objects easily. Chimpanzees walk on all four limbs but can walk upright for a short distance. What does it eat: Chimpanzees are omnivores, which meaning they eat a wide variety of foods that includes fruits, nuts, seeds, and insects. Chimps occasionally hunt and eat meat. Keystone species? No

Where in the world are they found? Chimps prefer dense tropical rainforests but can also be found in secondary-growth forests, woodlands, bamboo forests, swamps, and even open savannah. Chimpanzees can be found in 21 African countries

Why is your species endangered? Habitat destruction is the greatest threat of the chimpanzee. Large population decreases are also blamed on hunting and commercial exportation. The increasing human population is encroaching ever deeper into even protected areas of chimpanzees habitats and large scale logging is now major threat to the forest primates of Africa.

How many remain? How long till completely extinct? An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 chimpanzees remain in the wild. There is an estimate between the 4 species to all be extinct in 50 years.

How many species are left in the world? Why should humans work to save them? There are four subspecies that still remain: Western chimpanzee Central chimpanzee Eastern chimpanzee Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee Animal are part of the ecosystem ad biodiversity so extinction would ruin the balance.

What is being done to help revitalize the species? Chimpanzees are protected in almost all African countries where they reside both by local and international laws. Tourism has been very successful in bringing in money to the local area and encouraging conservation of the area. In places like New Guinea there efforts underway to plant trees to create forest corridors for the chimps that would link two separate population of currently segregated chimpanzees.

What can be done to help or ensure their survival? Help African Wildlife Foundations that work with local communities to provide education on chimpanzees and way to help them. All of the reasons that they are endangered is due to human activity, if we save their homes and cut back on hunting them their population rate will increase.

How successful are the current efforts? What problems do conservation or wildlife have? Their has been many efforts to try and reintroduce Chimpanzees into the wild. In the past these efforts have not been successful but their have been some recent success. The problems conservation and wildlife have is that their efforts to try and education people and save the chimps is not working and the population is still decreasing.

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