Fall of the Wild: The Bushmeat Crisis
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Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History.
Nearly Half of All Primates Face Extinction
August 5, 2008
Of the world's 634 species and subspecies of primates, 48 percent are threatened with extinction because of habitat destruction, illegal wildlife trade, and commercial bushmeat hunting, according to a comprehensive review for the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Seventy-one percent of Asia's primates are at risk of extinction. About 90 percent of primates in Vietnam and Cambodia are at risk. Globally, about one in ten primates are critically endangered, which means they face an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. Dozens of scientists from around the world provided data for this survey.
“We’ve raised concerns for years about primates being in peril, but now we have solid data to show the situation is far more severe than we imagined,” said Russell A. Mittermeier, Conservation International president and chairman of the IUCN's Primate Specialist Group, in a press release. “Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact. In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction.”
As humans encroach upon and build roads into forests, hunting primates becomes easier and more frequent. The destruction of tropical forests, through burning and clearing, not only eliminates primate habitat but also emits 20 percent of the total greenhouse gases that cause climate change and reduces the planet's ability to absorb them by destroying these carbon sinks.
While this survey brings grim news, other surveys have brought happier news. Since 2000, more than 50 species that had been unknown to science have been described. And in August 2008, the Wildlife Conservation Society released the results of a census that found more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas in two adjacent areas of the northern part of the Republic of Congo. Before this, scientists believed there may be fewer than 50,000 of these gorillas throughout their range.
Sources: Conservation International, IUCN
