Free-Living Chimpanzees - Bushmeat

Great apes -- gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos -- are being hunted to extinction for commercial bushmeat in the equatorial forests of west and central Africa. A ragged, far flung army of 2,000 bushmeat hunters supported by the timber industry infrastructure will illegally shoot and butcher over 3,000 gorillas and 4,000 chimpanzees this year. That's five times the number of gorillas on Rwanda's Mt. Visoke and 20 times more chimpanzees than live near Tanzania's Gombe Stream. People pay a premium to eat more great apes each year than are now kept in all the zoos and laboratories of the world.

Learn more about Bushmeat:

• The Bushmeat Project
• The Bushmeat Crisis Task Force

Read an article: Endangered apes being killed for meat - CNN Report