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CONAKRY - A mysterious epidemic may be responsible for the disappearance of over half the chimpanzees at a colony in southeast Guinea, one of Africa's most important research sites for the primates.
Pepe Soropogui, head of the chimpanzee investigation at the Bossou Environmental Research Institute, said no more than 12 West African chimpanzees remain from a population of around 30 in 2002.
Primate experts are baffled by the dwindling population at Bossou, close to Mt Nimba in the border region with Ivory Coast and Liberia.
"There are theories that some chimpanzees have contracted a sort of bronchitis or pneumonia probably transmitted by man, but we are not sure because chimpanzees have funeral rites and take away the bodies after death," said Marie Claude Gauthier of the Jane Goodall Institute for wildlife research and conservation.
Chimpanzees share around 98 per cent of man's genetic makeup and are sensitive to human diseases, she said.
Other theories include the migration of the chimps through the thick jungles towards Liberia or the Ivory Coast.
"Nothing has been ruled out. It is a mystery," Gauthier said.
- REUTERS
