3/8/2023 0 Comments Gaia project apes![]() ![]() Michele Parsons, Thomas Gillespie, and Elizabeth Lonsdorf (left to right) on their way to Gombe with a large load of sampling equipment and supplies. “There is a need to build scientifically sound wildlife ‘public health’ systems that can detect and monitor disease and health of these populations,” Travis told Mongabay by email. But researchers did not historically perform necropsies to conclusively determine why the animals were dying. For example, primatologists observed clinical signs of illnesses like simian immunodeficiency viruses, an AIDS-like syndrome. “Human decisions about land use, travel and tourism, natural resource extraction, and even what protein source we choose - or have to eat to survive - all affect the level of contact between us, and hence the risk of potential transmission.”ĭespite the potential for devastating outbreaks, relatively little is known about endemic (normal) infectious disease rates in wild apes, let alone the factors influencing the risk of the introduction and spread of diseases among apes, humans and livestock.įrom Goodall’s time on, researchers in Gombe have observed that disease has a major impact on the park’s chimpanzees, Travis says. “Contact between apes and humans has increased in the so-called Anthropocene,” Travis says. As people move into chimpanzee habitat, interactions between humans, livestock and apes increase, resulting in more opportunities for apes to be exposed to human diseases. These two factors are related, says Dominic Travis, a veterinary epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Decades of data have given a clear diagnosis for the greatest threats to Gombe’s chimpanzee population: disease and habitat loss outside the park. Research continues to this day, making Gombe the site of the world’s longest-running chimpanzee study. ( Editor’s note: Jane Goodall is a member of Mongabay’s advisory board.) It was here that Jane Goodall began her primate research in 1960, making groundbreaking discoveries about chimpanzees’ tool use, hunting, and complex social relationships. Gombe is a fragile strip of grassland, woodland and tropical rainforest that straddles the steep slopes and river valleys on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in western Tanzania. Image © the Jane Goodall Institute / By Lillian Pintea. Chimp Gaia grooms her son Google in Gombe National Park. Their living laboratory is Tanzania’s Gombe National Park, a 52-square-kilometer (20-square-mile) nature reserve that has for half a century played a pivotal role in chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes) conservation. The good news is that for more than 15 years, a group of committed scientists has been working hard to understand how the health of humans, animals and ecosystems affect each other. Infectious outbreaks can be devastating for the environment as well, wiping out entire communities of wildlife. And due to their similarity with humans, primates are a particularly potent reservoir or amplifier for pathogens that pose a risk to humans. More than 60 percent of emerging infectious diseases originated in animals. Great apes can spread plagues of biblical proportions - the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) first crossed from chimps to humans in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo and eventually killed 35 million people. Established 15 years ago, the Gombe Ecosystem Health Project aims to improve the health of chimps, humans and the wider ecosystem in the Gombe area.Ĭhimpanzees’ health is not just an issue of concern for conservationists or animal rights activists.Given the close genetic relationship between chimps and humans, diseases can flow both ways.The two factors are linked, with human incursions into chimpanzee habitat increasing the risk of exposure to disease.Decades of research at Tanzania’s Gombe National Park have identified two major threats facing the park’s chimpanzees: habitat loss and disease. ![]()
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