Close human relatives, bonobos near extinction

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, December 8, 2004

GLAND, Switzerland – One of man’s closest relatives, the pygmy chimpanzee, may be much closer to extinction than previously thought, a conservation group said today.

A study by the Worldwide Fund for Nature found that poaching and human encroachment into the animal’s natural habitat had left far fewer pygmy chimpanzees – or bonobos – in Congo’s Salonga National Park than previously thought.

Salonga reserve – about the size of The Netherlands – could be the world’s largest pygmy chimpanzee habitat, but authorities have been unable to monitor it adequately because of Congo’s long civil war, the conservation group said.