![]() ![]() McCarthy collaborated with Linda Vigilant, Jack Lester and Mimi Arandjelovic of the Max Planck Institute in Germany and Eric Howe of the University of St. Stanford, a co-author on McCarthy’s paper, is a professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife and co-director of USC’s Jane Goodall Research Center. She hopes to discover whether forest corridors allow for continued movement by chimpanzees despite severe forest fragmentation.” “Her work shows that as African forests shrink from human disturbance, chimpanzee populations can be surprisingly resilient. “Maureen McCarthy’s work is groundbreaking for the study of great ape population genetics and has important implications for wildlife conservation,” said Craig Stanford, McCarthy’s faculty adviser at USC. Maureen McCarthy’s work is groundbreaking for the study of great ape population genetics. Next, McCarthy will analyze her data to see whether the chimpanzees are using the fragments as a corridor to move between the two reserves or whether the populations in those reserves are genetically isolated. Each time we revisited an area, we found fewer trees than the last time we were there,” she said. ![]() “Hundreds of kilometers of forest are estimated to have been lost in this region in recent years, and we saw plenty of evidence of this while collecting data. And the fruit trees that they rely on for food are rapidly being cut down, McCarthy said. (Photo/Courtesy of International Fund for Animal Welfare Animal Rescue)īecause the area is unprotected, the chimpanzees are vulnerable to trapping. The chimps are carving out an existence in shrinking forest patches. The population that lives in the region McCarthy studied is important because it represents the growing status quo for these chimpanzees - no longer inhabiting wide, unbroken swaths of forest, they instead carve out an existence in shrinking forest patches. There are an estimated 76,400 to 119,600 eastern chimpanzees left in the world, of which about 5,000 live in Uganda, according to a 2010 report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which classified them as “endangered.” “Our results show a surprisingly widespread and large chimpanzee population in this region, especially given the extent of habitat loss there,” McCarthy said. student who conducted the research at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.Ī paper about her discovery was published in the journal BMC Ecology on Aug. The clustering of the genotypes suggests that there are at least nine communities of between eight and 33 individual chimpanzees, said Maureen McCarthy, a Ph.D. Previous estimates, based on counting nests from the ground, put the population at around 70. In the shrinking forest fragments between Budongo and Bugoma reserves - a roughly 1,200-square-kilometer area along Lake Albert on Uganda’s western border - researchers found evidence for roughly 250 to 320 chimpanzees. Some media organisations scrambled helicopters to cover the incident.Ī spokesperson for Sydney Zoo told Guardian Australia that there had been no animal escape, but staff had followed safety protocols after the discovery had been made.Two years spent collecting and analyzing eastern chimpanzee fecal samples from an unprotected region in Uganda has revealed a far larger population of the primates than previous estimates suggested for the area. The zoo in western Sydney reiterated that rumours of an animal escape were not true.Įarly reports said an ape had escaped, sparking a lockdown, with visitors being turned away, told to stay in their cars or locked inside the administrative building. This has been a very sad day for everyone.”Īn earlier statement announcing the death on the zoo’s Facebook page caused an outpouring of sympathy, with 944 comments registered by 3pm. He will be remembered for his adventurous spirit, piercing amber eyes and cheeky smile. Mogli had a personality that was larger than life. An effort to learn what happened by reviewing CCTV footage has provided no answers and so a postmortem will be conducted.Ĭhimpanzees normally live for more than four decades and the zoo’s primate curator Lou Grossfeldt said the loss had been devastating for staff. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |