Whilst the world has concentrated its attention entirely on the people of Ebola, not much focus has been giving to another, very real problem: Do you know how much Ebola has affected the chimp and gorilla populations of central Africa?
Ebola originated from somewhere deep inside Guinea, and it is home to “the largest population of chimpanzees in all of West Africa”. Because of the density of the forests, though, we can’t count the numbers of infected apes.
The good news is that Animal activists are ramping up efforts to find an Ebola vaccine for great apes” but there is still a human vs apes conflict for funding.
Since 1990, Ebola has “wiped out one third of the world’s population of chimpanzees and gorillas, which now stand at less than 300,000 and 95,000 respectively”.
Those are some scary stats right there.
Apes are Ebola’s perfect target – they are “acutely tactile mammals, their dynamic social environments revolve around intimacy with each other. Touching hands, scratching backs, hugging, kissing, and tickling, they are near constantly intertwined — giving Ebola a free ride”.
Obviously people are arguing over the fact that people now want to fund animals over humans, but realistically it needs to be two paths that ride harmoniously parallel to one another. They’re both equally important.
Check out The Daily Beast for the full piece.
