Humans are driving the extinction of our closest relatives on planet Earth, and if we don’t change our behavior, we may be the last great ape standing.

Adolescent mountain gorilla, Rwanda.

In the worst-case scenario, where human emissions and land use continue as usual, researchers predict a 94 percent loss of great ape habitat in Africa by 2050.

Even if we get our act together before then, reducing our fossil fuel emissions and keeping ecosystems protected, models show gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos will likely lose 85 percent of their range in Africa in the next three decades.

No matter which scenario ends up coming true, roughly half of all habitat loss could occur in protected areas, like national parks.

Climate change, after all, doesn’t adhere to human-constructed boundaries. As the world warms and landscapes shift, there’s always a chance great apes could flee to higher ground, but this takes time, and many species are slow to reproduce and require niche environments.

Such migration could also drive great apes out of protected areas, putting their populations at even greater risk. In fact, a series of new models estimates that future ranges for chimps, gorillas, and bonobos will shift mostly towards unprotected areas, which are subject to farming, mining, logging, hunting, and urban development.

The current predictions are based on the most comprehensive database for African ape populations to date. Using various climate forecasts, land use data, and projections of human population growth, researchers have shown just how imperiled these creatures truly are.

While there’s plenty of research to show how poorly great apes have been faring in recent decades, few studies have tried to predict what will happen to ape populations in the future.

In both Africa and Asia, great apes are all endangered, some critically so, and what’s left of their habitat is disappearing rapidly due to human disturbance.

At this point, even the best-case scenario is not looking great. The protected areas we have designated for great apes in Africa simply aren’t cutting it.

Going forward, models predict all great apes in Africa are likely to experience massive range losses, regardless of whether protected areas remain in place or not.

Currently, many African apes live outside of these boundaries, in areas that are particularly suitable for farming or oil palm concessions.

Three-quarters of all Grauer’s gorillas, for instance, live in unprotected areas, as well as 64 percent of mountain gorillas, 91 percent of Cross River gorillas, 80 percent of bonobos, 90 percent of Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees, 80 percent of eastern chimps, and 80 percent of central chimps.

As you would expect, these unprotected areas are also more vulnerable to human disturbance.

“The fact that the greatest range losses are expected to occur outside protected areas reflects the insufficiency of the current network of protected areas in Africa to preserve suitable habitats for great apes and effectively connect great ape populations,” says Joana Carvalho, who studies primate ecology and conservation at Liverpool John Moores University.

While climate change will no doubt make some habitats less attractive to great apes, it can also create new habitats. That said, it can take hundreds, even thousands of years, for great ape populations to disperse into new and suitable areas.

Thirty years is likely not enough. Given how quickly climate change is occurring, researchers think great apes will probably not be able to migrate to the extent that’s needed.

For many species, this could spell the end. If chimpanzees don’t shift their habitats, for instance, the new study suggests more than three-quarters of their range will be lost under future scenarios.

Mountain gorillas and Cross River gorillas, on the other hand, have virtually nowhere else to go. Even in the best-case scenario, current models found these two species of great ape are likely to experience complete loss of suitable habitat and no new suitable habitat.

“The global consumption of natural resources extracted from great ape ranges is one of the main causes of great ape decline,” says ecologist Hjalmar Kühl from the Max Planck Institute.

“All nations that benefit from these resources have a responsibility to ensure a better future for great apes, their habitats, as well as the people living in them by advancing a more sustainable economy.”

Great apes in Asia are also experiencing similar problems.

Since the 1990s, over 80 percent of orangutan habitat has been lost, and if we continue on the same track, some experts think these great apes could be extinct in a decade’s time.

“We can expect climate change to exacerbate range loss for African apes and consequently pose serious threats to species persistence, as they are anticipated to impact orangutans,” the authors of the new study write.

By the end of the century, there’s a very real chance humans will be the only great ape left.

The study was published in Diversity and Distributions.

PermeateFree said:

By the end of the century, there’s a very real chance humans will be the only great ape left.

ah, “great” like how america has been made great again, nice

It won’t be the last time that I can say that I am ashamed of happening to belong to the human race to extiguishment.
But my last gurgle appears not far off.

roughbarked said:

It won’t be the last time that I can say that I am ashamed of happening to belong to the human race to extinguishment.
But my last gurgle appears not far off.

that dreaded n thing.

Humans are one of the few ape species that evolved to be reliant upon grasses and the grassland eco-system. Most of our staple crops are grasses, and most of our domesticated meat animals are grass grazers.

party_pants said:

Humans are one of the few ape species that evolved to be reliant upon grasses and the grassland eco-system. Most of our staple crops are grasses, and most of our domesticated meat animals are grass grazers.

So what was Einstein on about with the bees?

SCIENCE said:

PermeateFree said:

By the end of the century, there’s a very real chance humans will be the only great ape left.

ah, “great” like how america has been made great again, nice

By “very real chance” do they mean, say, one in 50,000?

mollwollfumble said:

SCIENCE said:

PermeateFree said:

By the end of the century, there’s a very real chance humans will be the only great ape left.

ah, “great” like how america has been made great again, nice

By “very real chance” do they mean, say, one in 50,000?

I’d be interested to see your working. My guess would be way higher than that, but it would just be a guess.

OTOH, I’d also guess that loss of habitat due to direct human activities is the big problem, and GHG emissions are not that relevant to this particular issue.

Maybe there needs to be an intervention and the west recolonise some of these busted arsed African countries with their corrupt regimes but this time not for exploitation reasons but for noble reasons.
Discuss.

Peak Warming Man said:

Maybe there needs to be an intervention and the west recolonise some of these busted arsed African countries with their corrupt regimes but this time not for exploitation reasons but for noble reasons.
Discuss.

civilising others is a noble purpose stop end

Peak Warming Man said:

Maybe there needs to be an intervention and the west recolonise some of these busted arsed African countries with their corrupt regimes but this time not for exploitation reasons but for noble reasons.
Discuss.

The reasoning is sound, but I suggest it would be more effective to have the busted arsed African countries re-colonise the West (and indeed the East) with their corrupt regimes.

For noble reasons of course.

Peak Warming Man said:

Maybe there needs to be an intervention and the west recolonise some of these busted arsed African countries with their corrupt regimes but this time not for exploitation reasons but for noble reasons.
Discuss.

an African Spring?

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

SCIENCE said:

By the end of the century, there’s a very real chance humans will be the only great ape left.

By “very real chance” do they mean, say, one in 50,000?

I’d be interested to see your working. My guess would be way higher than that, but it would just be a guess.

OTOH, I’d also guess that loss of habitat due to direct human activities is the big problem, and GHG emissions are not that relevant to this particular issue.

For starters, human population growth is slowing. By the end of the century there’s a very good chance, perhaps 50/50, that human population growth will have stopped. And if human population growth stops then it’s reasonable to assume that wildlife habitat destruction will have slowed or even stopped by the end of the century.

• Mountain gorillas are under serious threat, no one can deny that.
• Western lowland gorillas are not threatened. “100,000 western lowland gorillas are thought to exist in the wild, with 4,000 in zoos”.
• Chimpanzees are legally protected in most of their range, and are found both in and outside national parks. Between 172,700 and 299,700 individuals are thought to be living in the wild.
• Bonobos have population estimates ranging from 29,500 to 50,000 individuals. The danger here is war, in the middle of a major war, few people care about conservation. The land is shared with people who are very poor.
• There are about 80,000 wild orangutans. I’ve seen wild orangutans on Borneo and am happy to report that, despite the shockingly enormous amount of forest logging in Borneo, all logging there is legally controlled and done in a sustainable way, only taking the tallest trees, not reducing forest usefulness to orangutans. I have calculated the number of orangurans killed by human activities, and it’s much smaller than the natural attrition due to age.

No large mammal species has gone extinct on mainland Africa since the 1870s.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

By “very real chance” do they mean, say, one in 50,000?

I’d be interested to see your working. My guess would be way higher than that, but it would just be a guess.

OTOH, I’d also guess that loss of habitat due to direct human activities is the big problem, and GHG emissions are not that relevant to this particular issue.

For starters, human population growth is slowing. By the end of the century there’s a very good chance, perhaps 50/50, that human population growth will have stopped. And if human population growth stops then it’s reasonable to assume that wildlife habitat destruction will have slowed or even stopped by the end of the century.

• Mountain gorillas are under serious threat, no one can deny that.
• Western lowland gorillas are not threatened. “100,000 western lowland gorillas are thought to exist in the wild, with 4,000 in zoos”.
• Chimpanzees are legally protected in most of their range, and are found both in and outside national parks. Between 172,700 and 299,700 individuals are thought to be living in the wild.
• Bonobos have population estimates ranging from 29,500 to 50,000 individuals. The danger here is war, in the middle of a major war, few people care about conservation. The land is shared with people who are very poor.
• There are about 80,000 wild orangutans. I’ve seen wild orangutans on Borneo and am happy to report that, despite the shockingly enormous amount of forest logging in Borneo, all logging there is legally controlled and done in a sustainable way, only taking the tallest trees, not reducing forest usefulness to orangutans. I have calculated the number of orangurans killed by human activities, and it’s much smaller than the natural attrition due to age.

No large mammal species has gone extinct on mainland Africa since the 1870s.

I don’t see any numbers there, other than the 50/50.

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I’d be interested to see your working. My guess would be way higher than that, but it would just be a guess.

OTOH, I’d also guess that loss of habitat due to direct human activities is the big problem, and GHG emissions are not that relevant to this particular issue.

For starters, human population growth is slowing. By the end of the century there’s a very good chance, perhaps 50/50, that human population growth will have stopped. And if human population growth stops then it’s reasonable to assume that wildlife habitat destruction will have slowed or even stopped by the end of the century.

• Mountain gorillas are under serious threat, no one can deny that.
• Western lowland gorillas are not threatened. “100,000 western lowland gorillas are thought to exist in the wild, with 4,000 in zoos”.
• Chimpanzees are legally protected in most of their range, and are found both in and outside national parks. Between 172,700 and 299,700 individuals are thought to be living in the wild.
• Bonobos have population estimates ranging from 29,500 to 50,000 individuals. The danger here is war, in the middle of a major war, few people care about conservation. The land is shared with people who are very poor.
• There are about 80,000 wild orangutans. I’ve seen wild orangutans on Borneo and am happy to report that, despite the shockingly enormous amount of forest logging in Borneo, all logging there is legally controlled and done in a sustainable way, only taking the tallest trees, not reducing forest usefulness to orangutans. I have calculated the number of orangurans killed by human activities, and it’s much smaller than the natural attrition due to age.

No large mammal species has gone extinct on mainland Africa since the 1870s.

I don’t see any numbers there, other than the 50/50.

Indeed. You supply the numbers. See what you get.

Take account of World War 3 and a complete world economic collapse in your calculations.

PermeateFree said:

Cute. But might have been more relevant to post this image of Borneo..

..or point out state government corruption

Ian said:

PermeateFree said:

Cute. But might have been more relevant to post this image of Borneo..

..or point out state government corruption

The Economy Must Grow

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

For starters, human population growth is slowing. By the end of the century there’s a very good chance, perhaps 50/50, that human population growth will have stopped. And if human population growth stops then it’s reasonable to assume that wildlife habitat destruction will have slowed or even stopped by the end of the century.

• Mountain gorillas are under serious threat, no one can deny that.
• Western lowland gorillas are not threatened. “100,000 western lowland gorillas are thought to exist in the wild, with 4,000 in zoos”.
• Chimpanzees are legally protected in most of their range, and are found both in and outside national parks. Between 172,700 and 299,700 individuals are thought to be living in the wild.
• Bonobos have population estimates ranging from 29,500 to 50,000 individuals. The danger here is war, in the middle of a major war, few people care about conservation. The land is shared with people who are very poor.
• There are about 80,000 wild orangutans. I’ve seen wild orangutans on Borneo and am happy to report that, despite the shockingly enormous amount of forest logging in Borneo, all logging there is legally controlled and done in a sustainable way, only taking the tallest trees, not reducing forest usefulness to orangutans. I have calculated the number of orangurans killed by human activities, and it’s much smaller than the natural attrition due to age.

No large mammal species has gone extinct on mainland Africa since the 1870s.

I don’t see any numbers there, other than the 50/50.

Indeed. You supply the numbers. See what you get.

Take account of World War 3 and a complete world economic collapse in your calculations.

For a starters, most human population growth will be in Africa, thereby placing additional threats to primates due to human expansion. The Great Apes in Africa are in a very a perilous situation and their future looks extremely bleak due increased human interference and National Parks in many instances have offered limited protection against elephant and rhino poaching.

Large mammals to go extinct in Africa since 1870:

Atlas bear
Bubal hartebeest
Cape lion
Cape warthog
Kenya oribi
Robert’s lechwe
Red gazelle
Quagga
Western black rhinoceros

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

For starters, human population growth is slowing. By the end of the century there’s a very good chance, perhaps 50/50, that human population growth will have stopped. And if human population growth stops then it’s reasonable to assume that wildlife habitat destruction will have slowed or even stopped by the end of the century.

• Mountain gorillas are under serious threat, no one can deny that.
• Western lowland gorillas are not threatened. “100,000 western lowland gorillas are thought to exist in the wild, with 4,000 in zoos”.
• Chimpanzees are legally protected in most of their range, and are found both in and outside national parks. Between 172,700 and 299,700 individuals are thought to be living in the wild.
• Bonobos have population estimates ranging from 29,500 to 50,000 individuals. The danger here is war, in the middle of a major war, few people care about conservation. The land is shared with people who are very poor.
• There are about 80,000 wild orangutans. I’ve seen wild orangutans on Borneo and am happy to report that, despite the shockingly enormous amount of forest logging in Borneo, all logging there is legally controlled and done in a sustainable way, only taking the tallest trees, not reducing forest usefulness to orangutans. I have calculated the number of orangurans killed by human activities, and it’s much smaller than the natural attrition due to age.

No large mammal species has gone extinct on mainland Africa since the 1870s.

I don’t see any numbers there, other than the 50/50.

Indeed. You supply the numbers. See what you get.

Take account of World War 3 and a complete world economic collapse in your calculations.

You are the one who came up with an estimated probability.

My guess would be about 10%, but that may well be on the low side.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

By “very real chance” do they mean, say, one in 50,000?

I’d be interested to see your working. My guess would be way higher than that, but it would just be a guess.

OTOH, I’d also guess that loss of habitat due to direct human activities is the big problem, and GHG emissions are not that relevant to this particular issue.

For starters, human population growth is slowing. By the end of the century there’s a very good chance, perhaps 50/50, that human population growth will have stopped. And if human population growth stops then it’s reasonable to assume that wildlife habitat destruction will have slowed or even stopped by the end of the century.

• Mountain gorillas are under serious threat, no one can deny that.
• Western lowland gorillas are not threatened. “100,000 western lowland gorillas are thought to exist in the wild, with 4,000 in zoos”.
• Chimpanzees are legally protected in most of their range, and are found both in and outside national parks. Between 172,700 and 299,700 individuals are thought to be living in the wild.
• Bonobos have population estimates ranging from 29,500 to 50,000 individuals. The danger here is war, in the middle of a major war, few people care about conservation. The land is shared with people who are very poor.
• There are about 80,000 wild orangutans. I’ve seen wild orangutans on Borneo and am happy to report that, despite the shockingly enormous amount of forest logging in Borneo, all logging there is legally controlled and done in a sustainable way, only taking the tallest trees, not reducing forest usefulness to orangutans. I have calculated the number of orangurans killed by human activities, and it’s much smaller than the natural attrition due to age.

No large mammal species has gone extinct on mainland Africa since the 1870s.

Eastern gorilla Gorilla beringei are thought to be around 5,000 animals
Sumatran orangutan Pongo abelii “ 7,000 “

Ian said:

PermeateFree said:

Cute. But might have been more relevant to post this image of Borneo..

..or point out state government corruption

Merely indicating that the great apes are very much like us and that we have a special relationship with them.

PermeateFree said:

Ian said:

PermeateFree said:

Cute. But might have been more relevant to post this image of Borneo..

..or point out state government corruption

Merely indicating that the great apes are very much like us and that we have a special relationship with them.

Fairy nuf. Thought you were responding to moll’s heap of steaming manure.