Overall, we’ve seen a 40 to 50 percent decline in chimps over the past decade. It’s hard to come up with exact numbers because chimps tend to move deep into the forest where it’s not easy to find them. The research I’ve conducted runs parallel to studies performed by Jane Goodall. We’re both coming up with the same results: chimps are in grave danger.

They will if nothing changes. The bushmeat crisis – the hunting and eating of apes – has had the greatest impact on the decline of chimps. You find this not only in Africa but in parts of South America and Asia as well. And, of course, the loss of the rainforest, chimps’ natural habitat, due to logging, also creates significant problems.

Well, you have many in Africa who are surviving on a subsistence level. Of course, they have done that for years. They go after the apes for the meat – the protein. But now villagers aren’t hunting simply to feed their families. There’s a profit motive. A virtual cottage industry has developed with villagers hunting apes so they can sell the meat to others. We believe that each year, two million metric tons of bushmeat is traded. Since there is little industry in West Africa, you can see why people live off the forest. However, it’s not sustainable and with guns, the kill rate is much higher. You are now threat-ening the entire species.

Each year there are more because the problem is growing. I’m currently an adviser to the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance – a group of 19 sanctuaries – that conducts research and meets regularly. We believe that for every baby chimp that is cared for in a sanctuary, five to 10 are killed or die in the wild. It’s a mathematical guesstimate, but to give you an idea of the scope of the problem, in 2001, there were 400 chimps in sanctuaries; today there are 700. If that number keeps growing at the same rate, you can see it’s only a matter of time before chimps become extinct.