Ape extinction, particularly great ape extinction

Extinction

In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...

, is one of the most widely held biodiversity

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

 concerns.

There are very few breeding populations of non-human great apes outside captivity, and all such populations are not only formally classified as endangered species

Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

, but in the direct path of human deforestation

Deforestation

Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....

 and development, especially in Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 and the Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

. They are also hunted by humans, as part of the growing African "bushmeat

Bushmeat

Bushmeat initially referred to the hunting of wild animals in West and Central Africa and is a calque from the French viande de brousse. Today the term is commonly used for meat of terrestrial wild animals, killed for subsistence or commercial purposes throughout the humid tropics of the Americas,...

" trade, which has spread to African cities. Wars and civil unrest, e.g. in the Congo basin, play a role in making effective conservation

Conservation ethic

Conservation is an ethic of resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the natural world: its, fisheries, habitats, and biological diversity. Secondary focus is on materials conservation and energy conservation, which are seen as important to...

 measures risky or even impossible.

As extinction has caused social groups of apes to disintegrate, losing many key adult members (according to researchers close to these groups) and leaving many ape children orphaned, pressure has also mounted to save these species.

The United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 appointed Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall

Dame Jane Morris Goodall, DBE , is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 45-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National...

, the primatologist most closely associated with chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...

s and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of many longitudinal studies of chimp life over a forty-year period, as an Ambassador.

Recently in August 2008, in the northern part of the Republic of Congo, 125,000 Western lowland gorillas were alive and well. This is good news for the conservation of Western Lowland gorillas as their numbers were declining rapidly. They are however still vulnerable to hunting for bush meat and ebola

Ebola

Ebola virus disease is the name for the human disease which may be caused by any of the four known ebolaviruses. These four viruses are: Bundibugyo virus , Ebola virus , Sudan virus , and Taï Forest virus...

.

The current mass extinction, in general, is called the Holocene extinction.

Estimates of numbers for great apes

Species	Estimated number
Sumatran Orangutan Sumatran Orangutan The Sumatran orangutan is one of the two species of orangutans. Found only on the island of Sumatra, in Indonesia, it is rarer and smaller than the Bornean orangutan. The Sumatran orangutan grows to about tall and in males...	6,667
Bornean Orangutan Bornean Orangutan The Bornean orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, is a species of orangutan native to the island of Borneo. Together with the slightly smaller Sumatran orangutan, it belongs to the only genus of great apes native to Asia....	61,234
Western Gorilla Western Gorilla The western gorilla is a great ape and the most populous species of the genus Gorilla.-Taxonomy:Nearly all of the individuals of this taxon belong to the western lowland gorilla subspecies whose population is approximately 95,000 individuals...	200,000
Eastern Gorilla Eastern Gorilla The eastern gorilla is a species of the genus Gorilla and the largest living primate. At present, the species is subdivided into two subspecies. The eastern lowland gorilla is the most populous, at about 5,000 individuals. The mountain gorilla has only about 700 individuals...	6,000
Common Chimpanzee Common Chimpanzee The common chimpanzee , also known as the robust chimpanzee, is a great ape. Colloquially, the common chimpanzee is often called the chimpanzee , though technically this term refers to both species in the genus Pan: the common chimpanzee and the closely related bonobo, formerly called the pygmy...	100,000
Bonobo Bonobo The bonobo , Pan paniscus, previously called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often, the dwarf or gracile chimpanzee, is a great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan. The other species in genus Pan is Pan troglodytes, or the common chimpanzee...	10,000