Ebola virus

Ebola is the common term for a virus which first hits humans. At the beginning the virus was transmitted by contacts between humans and apes dead bodies.
Nevertheless for ten years researchers found several cases in Great apes.
Indeed the result of this case study was more than a half of great apes population decimated.

For example in Gabon, country which provides shelter for 80% of gorilla's population, almost 90% of nests disappeared since 1983.

In fact most of cases are detected on the edge of urbans areas , where forest can be reached by humans and consequently where roads can be built.

Today Ebola is an extensive threat for apes survival, on equal footing with poaching or deforestation.

Jane Goodall Institute

Jane Goodall is one of the most important person known for her works concerning chimpanzee's protection.Antropologist, ethologist and primatologist, Jane Goodall founded the "jane goodall institute" in 1977 after having studied chimpanzee in Gombe Stream National Park (Tanzania) in 1960.

The institute is not only focused on chimpanzee, but it deals with the human communities too. Five countries (Gabon, Rep.of Congo, Ouganda, Tanzania, South Africa) are concerned, in which the institute has numerous projects including the population. These communities are directly concerned about chimpanzee because of their geographical location. By giving them other jobs' alternatives, these people wouldn't capture or kill monkeys anymore to sell them for having more money. On another hand, these communities are suffering from poverty and from the destruction of their own habitat, that's why Jane Goodall Institute is also involved in reforestation and in developpement of sustainable means to reduce environment's damages. Training course about agriculture, developpment and distribution of seedling, sanitization of water...every means is used to enable the population to get rid of their misery and improve their way of life.

We invite you to have a look at their website, which is clearly more complete than this article :

english: http://www.janegoodall.org/default.asp

french: http://www.janegoodall.fr/

Baby Monkey Business

In addition to hunting and poaching, there is a business of baby monkeys. Young animals are not caught to be eaten but to be sold on markets. The babies monkeys are sold as "pet" but the great apes are not suited to this kind of life. You should know, that to capture a baby, it's often his entire family who is decimated. Indeed, adults protect their offspring and hinder the capture of babies, so they are shot. Unfortunately, separated from their mothers, their chances of survival are very low because they are extremely fragile, beaten and injured in the capture, isolated from their peers, without adequate food .. Growing up, the monkey becomes less and less "interesting" and docile. It can becomes dangerous so he is destroyed or locked in a cage to be exhibited ...

The monkey trade is a very lucrative and flourishing business between several countries, like Morocco, Malaysia, Cameroon, and Europe. Now you can even buy monkeys on the internet.

You can see the horror on this link :

http://www.aza.fr/asp/animaux/liste.asp?idrubrique=23&iddep=