What is the status of the chimp population in Africa today?
Jane Goodall: The situation for chimpanzees in the wild is quite fragile. Epidemic diseases such as polio and pneumonia can suddenly decimate a community. Chimpanzee populations everywhere are decreasing at an alarming rate. Over the past thirty years, there has been no overall increase in the population at Gombe–even in this protected national park. How much grimmer is the situation outside the national parks, across the chimpanzees’ range in Africa! Once they were present in twenty-five African countries; they have already been totally exterminated in four; they are almost gone from five others; and there are only five countries where they are present in healthy populations of more than 5,000. The maximum number of chimps left in the wild is 250,000 and it could be much, much less. At the turn of the century there were millions. Is loss of habitat the main reason for the decline, as is the case with so many mammal species? Goodall: In part. It is also because in many African countri
