Chimpanzee, NC Zoo
by Cynthia Wolfe
Title
Chimpanzee, NC Zoo
Artist
Cynthia Wolfe
Medium
Photograph
Description
I could have stood there for hours, watching this Chimpanzee entertain all of us by eating and making noises. I think he enjoyed the attention we were showing him. He was eating an apple and holding on to an orange. About the time I snapped this shot, he looked like he was singing, something like Bruno Mars, WHOOOO HOOOOOOO, lol
Chimpanzees are great apes (not monkeys) who are native to the continent of Africa. If you ever wonder if you are looking at an ape or a monkey, look for a tail. Monkeys have tails, apes: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, gibbons, and humans �do not. Along with bonobos, chimpanzees are our closest living relatives. We share approximately 98% of our DNA with chimps, so it�s fair to say that we are 98% chimpanzee, and chimps are 98% human. Chimpanzees are an endangered species. Millions of chimpanzees used to live throughout equatorial Africa from southern Senegal through Central Africa to western Tanzania. This is an area almost the size of the United States. Today, there are estimated to be merely 170,000-300,000 chimpanzees left in Africa, and their population is decreasing rapidly. One recent census in the Ivory Coast revealed that the chimp population there had decreased 90% in just the past twenty years.
The primary threats to chimpanzees are habitat destruction, hunting, and disease. The increasing human population is encroaching ever deeper into even protected areas of chimpanzee habitats, and large scale logging is now a major threat to the forest primates of Africa. Subsistence hunting of chimpanzees as a source of meat is nothing new, but there is now a thriving but unsustainable commercial market for bushmeat (the meat of wild animals), including chimpanzees. Increased contact with humans, both local people and eco-tourists, has also brought the threat of diseases which may be mild in humans but lethal to chimps.
Uploaded
March 27th, 2017
Statistics
Viewed 317 Times - Last Visitor from Beverly Hills, CA on 03/28/2024 at 7:59 AM
Embed
Share
Sales Sheet