Posted on 09/07/2005 10:34:54 AM PDT by propertius
Congo's "hippies of the forest" apes dying out fast By David Lewis
KINSHASA, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Pygmy chimpanzees dubbed "hippies of the forest" for resolving conflicts through sex rather than violence are dying out faster than ever in post-war Democratic Republic of Congo, a conservationist said on Tuesday.
Bonobos, the rarest of all the great apes, are being killed in large numbers by bands of gunmen two years after the vast central African country's most recent war officially ended.
"In 1980, there were about 100,000 bonobos in Congo. In 1990 there were thought to be 10,000," Claudine Andre, founder of the Lola ya Bonobo (Bonobo Paradise) sanctuary just outside Kinshasa, told Reuters in an interview.
"Since then we have had two wars, their habitat has been occupied and the post-conflict period has been even harder, so I fear for what the situation is now," she said, adding that she was still receiving orphans after the war.
Experts warn bonobos, one of man's closest relatives, could die out within 50 years from poaching, logging and disease.
Hundreds of conservationists and policy makers from 23 nations are in Kinshasa this week to map out a survival plan for the world's gorillas, chimpanzees, orang-utans and bonobos.
"Bonobos are the species of great ape that is most likely to disappear," Andre said, calling to the orphaned chimpanzees through a fence separating the thickly forested sanctuary from the encroaching outskirts of the crumbling capital.
Only found in remote corners of Congo - a vast and inaccessible country that has been torn apart by a decade of war - the "forgotten ape" is said by scientists to be one of the least hostile primates.
"The bonobo's outlook is to search for peace," Andre said. "All their conflicts are resolved peacefully, often through sex. They are the hippies of the forest."
There are around 150 bonobos living in captivity in total but Andre hopes to rehabilitate and release some of her 43 orphans back into the wild.
Congo's last war officially ended in 2003 but the process of disarming thousands of fighters in a country the size of Western Europe and integrating them into the national army is faltering, leaving many gunmen near bonobo habitats, armed and hungry.
A well-organised bush meat trade and crippling poverty in the forests compound the threat to the apes.
"(Bush meat) is demanded by the urban population and as the people in the forests have no option, they are chopping down trees to make charcoal and trapping animals for bush meat," Andre said.
"If man destroys his closest cousin, he might destroy all animal species," she added, as a group of young bonobos drank from a bottle, ate bananas and had sex in a cage behind her.
Sorry -- just noticed this story was written yesterday. It wasn't posted on FR. While some will object to the "one of our closest relatives" stuff, it's still a fascinating story.
Anyway at least we have a new name for DUmmies -- they seem to have a lot in common with the bonobos after all. And are both headed for extinction. We hope and pray...
Sorry -- just noticed this story was written yesterday. It wasn't posted on FR. While some will object to the "one of our closest relatives" stuff, it's still a fascinating story.
Anyway at least we have a new name for DUmmies -- they seem to have a lot in common with the bonobos after all. And are both headed for extinction. We hope and pray...
Yeah, they want to string him up, but I think the mayor and governor are far more to blame ... ooops, wrong thread.
Bush meat. Tastes like churducken
Maybe they need a new strategy
LOL
They could teach my wife a thing or two. I like this idea about resolving conflicts through sex.
A more fun way of releasing tension then yelling. Plus its good exersize.
I actually saw a show on some nature thingy channel, it was fascinating. They are truly decadent, even for animals. I mean it really was sex with everyone, all the time, crossing gender lines willy-nilly. No kidding, I saw this on t.v.
Why is it that the very people who preach natural selection, survival of the fittest ad nauseum are the very ones who get weepy when one of the less fit species is threatened by the dominant one?
I mean, if we're all just the result of being the baddest evolved thing on the planet it is natural to expect us to wipe out the weaker competing links, right?
Let's try to be consistent here 'hairless apes!'
START CHIPPING FLINTS, YOU IDIOTS!
I always questioned the self preservation angle to "Make love not war".
Ship them to San Francisco - they'll thrive there. And now they can get married.
There are around 150 bonobos living in captivity in total but Andre hopes to rehabilitate and release some of her 43 orphans back into the wild.
Sounds to me like they would be safer in the zoos, but what do I know?
Bono
Evolution can be so unfair.
That's because no one likes hippies.
"Hippies, they want to save the world, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad." - Eric Cartman
"Welcome to the real world, hippy!"- Homer Simpson
BOBBY: Maybe it's just like you said: to catch a fish, you have to think like a fish. We just have to think like hippies.
HANK: That is impossible.
BOBBY: Come on, Dad, just try. Okay: I'm a hippie, and I'm naked because I smoked all my clothes.
HANK: Yeah. And I don't like to work.
BOBBY: Right. I like everything handed to me. I'm just like a kid.
LOL! I thought about posting a Bono pic. Good one.
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