If the survey results represent a more general trend, there may be as few as 10,000 bonobos, also called pygmy chimpanzees, left in the wild, the researchers estimate. Experts had previously thought that there might be around 50,000 remaining.
Poaching is to blame, says Peter Stephenson of the WWF, the conservation organization that supported the survey. Although it is illegal to kill bonobos, park officers have struggled to enforce the law during the long-running Congolese civil war, and armed militia groups still hide out in the wilderness of the Salonga park.
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