9781422279144

Rescuing Primates Gorillas, Chimps, and Monkeys

MARI RICH

Animal Testing: Attacking a Controversial Problem Battling Wildlife Poachers: The Fight to Save Elephants, Rhinos, Lions, Tigers, and More Dogs and Cats:

Saving Our Precious Pets Pollination Problems: The Battle to Save Bees and Other Vital Animals Rescuing Primates:

Gorillas, Chimps, and Monkeys Saving Marine Mammals: Whales, Dolphins, Seals, and More Saving Ocean Animals: Sharks, Turtles, Coral, and Fish Saving the Rainforests: Inside the World’s Most Diverse Habitat

Rescuing Primates Gorillas, Chimps, and Monkeys

BY MARI RICH

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D

Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com

© 2018 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3872-1 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-3877-6 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7914-4

First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Rich, Mari, author. Title: Rescuing primates : gorillas, chimps, and monkeys / by Mari Rich. Description: Broomall, PA : Mason Crest, [2017] | Series: Protecting the Earth’s animals | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017001353| ISBN 9781422238776 (hardback) | ISBN 9781422238721 (series) | ISBN 9781422279144 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Primates--Conservation--Juvenile literature. | Wildlife conservation--Juvenile literature. | Habitat conservation--Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC QL737.P9 R527 2017 | DDC 333.95/22--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn. loc.gov/2017001353

Cover photographs by Kitchner Bain/Dreamstime (top); Stockbymh/Dreamstime (bottom)

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CONTENTS

Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field. Introduction 6 What Are Primates? 16 Habitat Loss 26 Bushmeat 36 Are We Helping? 46 How You Can Help 60 Find Out More 62 Series Glossary of Key Terms 63 Index 64 KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND

dormant no longer active excrete expel or send out of a body, such as waste products militia an armed force usually not connected to official government reverent quiet and respectful, worshipful

introduction INTRODUCTION

Brent Stirton was used to seeing hor- rific things. As a photojournalist, he trav- eled the world documenting wars, epi- demics, food shortages, and other terrible events. But one picture he shot in July of 2007 shocked the world more than any he had ever taken before. The picture showed Senkwekwe, a massive silverback gorilla (another individual is pictured at left) who had lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the Virunga National Park. A large group of park rangers and villagers was car- rying the 500-pound (226 kg) great ape on a makeshift stretcher made of saplings. Senkwekwe had been found shot dead in the park’s dense bush. So were five female

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gorillas—one of them pregnant—from his family. Another of the females was known to have recently given birth. Her baby was thought to have run away and died, hidden deeper in the bush. It was an eerie sight. Trailed by others bearing the bod- ies of the dead females, Senkwekwe’s attendants headed to the park’s headquarters, north of the city of Goma. A burial ground had been established there for the gorillas. “It was a long walk and these are heavy animals,” Stirton later told a reporter. “Usually, when you get a group of Africans, there is singing and laughter, but not on this occasion. Everyone was silent, it was very reverent .” The killing of so many gorillas at one time was considered a major tragedy. Even the Congo- lese villagers, felt devastated. Conservationists believe that there are now fewer than 800 mountain gorillas in the entire world. Virunga, estab- lished in 1925, is Africa’s oldest national park, and home to about a quarter of them. Back in 2007, when the distress- ing massacre took place, the park was part of an actual war zone. The Congolese army, along with almost 20 recognized paramilitary groups and untold numbers of determined reb- el fighters, were using portions of Virunga as a battleground

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Rangers find skulls as evidence of poaching activity.

in a bloody and complicated civil war. It was even becoming common for park rangers to be shot while trying to pro- tect the innocent animals under their care. The park was so dangerous that soon after taking his now-famous photo of Senkwekwe’s funeral procession, Stirton heard that the Congolese army was searching for him. Frightened by what they might do to him, he fled the country. Later, investigators discovered that the gorillas had been murdered as a warning. The Democratic Republic of Congo was the site of a thriving illegal trade in charcoal. Charcoal is made from hardwood, which could be found in abundance where the gorillas lived, on the edges of the dormant Mike- no volcano in Virunga’s southern sector. A few devoted

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rangers had been trying to learn why so many trees were being cut down. The charcoal traders feared that they would lose money if rangers prevented them from harvesting the hardwood. They killed the gorillas as an ominous message to the rangers to stop meddling. A Wider Problem T he world’s apes and monkeys don’t have to live in war- torn zones to be at risk. Around the globe—including in the United States—these primate groups are vulnerable to a wide variety of dangers. Those dangers include being poached for meat, forced out of their homes due to habitat loss, used for medical testing, or even sold as pets to peo- ple who are not equipped to care for them properly. Some scientists and conservationists believe we are harming these animals so much that in the future they might not exist in the wild at all. About 100 years ago, there were at least a million chimpanzees in the world, for exam- ple, but today there are just an estimated 300,000, and the threats to their survival are only increasing. Sometimes the news is even worse. Every two years, the primate specialist group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) publishes a report titled

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“Primates in Peril: The World’s 25 Most Endangered Pri- mates.” The 2015 edition was alarming. More than half of the 703 species and subspecies of the world’s primates are in danger of extinction, the report warned. The endangered primates live in every corner of the world. Madagascar and Vietnam are both home to large numbers of highly threatened species. In Africa, the red colobus mon- key is under extreme threat, and in South America, some types of howler monkeys and spider monkeys could totally disappear in the near future. One of the most endangered primates is the Hainan gib- bon (part of a group known as the lesser apes), which lives, as far as scientists know, only in the Bawangling Nature Re- serve, on the western side of the Chinese island of Hainan. Back in the 1960s, the gibbons could be found all over the island, but since then, the population has declined at least 80 percent due to hunting and loss of habitat; there are now well fewer than 100 mature individuals alive today. A prominent spot on the list is also given to the Sumatran orangutan, an ape with distinctive long red fur that lives mainly on the northern side of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Scientists estimate that there are fewer than 15,000 Sumatran orangutans alive today. Sadly, their

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LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

In 2014 the documentary film Virunga was produced by famed Hollywood actor and direc- tor Leonardo DiCaprio. The award-winning picture follows a brave group of rangers, including an ex-child soldier and an expert in the care of orphaned gorillas, as they protect the park (named

numbers are rapidly dwindling because their habitat is in- creasingly being destroyed by logging and mining. Even in areas that are supposed to be formally protected by the government, illegal plantations and settlements are still be- ing built, posing more peril to the orangutans. Conservationists and activists are not standing by help- lessly while the orangutans die out. Besides pressuring the a world heritage site by the United Nations Education- al, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO) from armed militia , poachers, and the other dangers threaten- ing some of the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas. The movie’s tagline is, “Conservation is war!”

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government to better preserve the animals’ natural habi- tat, wildlife experts are helping to establish two brand-new groups of Sumatran orangutans. They are releasing more than 250 orangutans that had been sold as illegal pets but then confiscated by law enforcement officials. One group is being established in Indonesia’s Bukit Tigapuluh National Park and another around the Jantho Pine Forest Nature Re- serve. They hope that those newly released orangutans will be healthy and reproduce regularly, producing new genera- tions to live in the wild. Virunga Today T he rangers of Virunga are not standing by helplessly, either. They continue to fight to save the gorillas and other animals in the park even though they put themselves in great danger. In September 2016, a 30-year-old ranger named Jules Kombi Kambale was on a routine patrol when he was killed by a member of an armed militia. He had been working at the park for three years and was known for his deep love of the gorillas. He is one of about 150 rangers killed at Virunga in recent decades. Despite the efforts of the rangers and increased security measures in the park, mountain gorillas remain in danger.

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They are sometimes targeted by local poachers or militia members who set out snares to trap them for their meat. Other times, the villagers lose patience when their crops are stolen and attack the gorillas. That happened to the surviving members of Senkwekwe’s family group in 2013, when they raided a field of maize. One of the younger go- rillas could not run fast enough and was killed by an angry villager with a machete. Unlike many of the primates in the wild, however, the mountain gorillas of Virunga are lucky to live in a protect- ed habitat that draws tourists from around the globe, who come specifically to see them. Wildlife tourism brings more than $1.5 million a year to the country. Some of that helps support conservation efforts. People who work at Virunga or who have visited say that seeing a mountain gorilla fami- ly up close is a life-changing experience. (Tourists wear sur- gical masks and take other careful precautions so that they don’t make the animals ill or disturb them in any way.) Why It Matters T here are many reasons why primate conservation is important. As we know from Virunga, wildlife tourism can boost a country’s economy and attract much-needed

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