Chimps over-hunt monkey prey almost to extinction
Chimpanzees are intelligent animals. They are one of the closest to humans. And researchers have found that humans and chimps share a common tendency. Over-hunt certain prey to extinction.
In part of Africa, chimps hunt certain species of monkeys so much that the population of the monkey has gone down to near extinction level. In recent years in particular, they hunted nearly a half of the remaining population every year. And as hunting to the monkeys becomes more time and energy consuming due to the reduced population, they started to hunt another species and threatening the population. They are smart enough to save effort but don’t seem to care about conservation, like humans.
Chimps usually get most of its needed nutrition from fruits but they eat meat as well. They hunt smaller animals like monkeys in a group with effective tactics. Young chimps learn to hunt as their predecessors do, like lions or wolves. When they attack a group of monkeys, they don’t look for hunting them all. They just need a few of them. But that still has significant impact on the monkeys to sustain its population. Two out 10 is 20%. That sounds like a big blow, doesn’t it?
Enjoy reading and learning about hunting of our nearest species.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150728-chimps-nearly-wiped-out-monkeys
No comments:
Post a Comment