The Bonobo apes of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are sex-addicted members of the ape family but that hasn’t stopped them from becoming nearly extinct.
Sky News reports that while the animals have sex every few minutes they also have low fertility which has caused them to experience very low birth rates.
The Bonobo apes are also hunted for their meat and stolen to be turned into pets. Their low numbers have caused the species to be listed as “endangered.”
According to estimates before the regions civil war there were nearly 100,000 bonobo apes living in the wilde while that number is now placed at approximately 5,000 with some of the survivors living their lives in public zoos.
The bonobos are the closest species to humans.
Lola Ya Bonobos Sanctuary worked Evelyne Peteolot told Fox News:
“It is so difficult with all the political problems here to be able to carry out a proper census … It’s a species that will disappear, unfortunately, because this animal only exists [in the wild] here in Democratic Republic of the Congo. If there are no longer any left here, they will no longer be found anywhere. So they will become extinct, which is a real shame.”
With the region still ravished by fighting and a diminished economy its hard to determine what steps the local government could take in order to protect the last of the bonobo apes.
Are you surprised that the bonobo ape population has diminished so quickly, especially with their addiction to sex?
