Thanks to deforestation, new roads are built to a better access in forests and the poachers can go near animals more easily. They stand in the forest during some weeks and fill their trucks with many corpses of great apes. All animals are removed, without any distinction between species endangered or not. The meat will be sold on markets and in restaurants. Even if Europe banned the business of Great Apes, in some restaurants, you can eat, with a special order, monkey meat.Gorillas and chimpanzees are killed everyday in the central and Western Congo basin and in the central Africa for bushmeat. It is estimated that in Congo, 5 million of tonnes of meat of the great apes is consumed per year.
Long time ago, people killed monkeys to eat them, it was not an important threat because only the inhabitants of small villages hunted. Today, this situation has changed and the business of great apes brings in a lot of money. Skins, skulls are sold too. Hands end like ashtrays.
Monkeys are sold alive too. They go in zoos, animal's shops and at private individual. Poachers capture baby monkeys, after killing their families, and they are sold like pets.
One hundred and fourteen of the 394 primate species, or 29%, are threatened with global extinction and were placed on the IUCN Red List. If the slaughter continues at its current pace, the Great Apes will be extinct in about thirty years.
Great apes look like humans. They are intelligent and we share with chimpanzees, 98% of our genetic heritage. How can we eat them .. ??
