Sheffield University. UK: There is a side to the Ebola crisis that, perhaps
understandably, has received little media attention: the threat it poses
to our nearest cousins, the great apes of Africa. At this moment in
time Ebola is the single greatest threat to the survival of gorillas and
chimpanzees. The virus is even more deadly for other great apes as it is for
humans, with mortality rates approximately 95% for gorillas and 77% for
chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Current estimates suggest a third of the
world’s gorillas and chimpanzees have died from Ebola since the 1990s.
As with humans, these deaths tend to come in epidemics. In 1995, an
outbreak is reported to have killed more than 90% of the gorillas in
Minkébé Park in northern Gabon. In 2002-2003 a single outbreak of ZEBOV
(the Zaire strain of Ebola) in the Democratic Republic of Congo killed
an estimated 5,000 Western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla). It’s hard to
accurately count such elusive creatures but the WWF estimates there are
up to 100,000 left in the wild – so a single Ebola outbreak wiped out a
considerable chunk of the world’s gorilla population.
There are of course additional factors behind the declining numbers
of Africa’s great apes: illegal trading in wildlife and bushmeat, war,
deforestation and other infectious diseases. The world’s remaining wild
apes are being increasingly forced into isolated pockets of forest,
which impedes their ability to forage, breed and to hide from hunters.
There is also a growing body of evidence linking deforestation and
subsequent changes in climate to the spread of Ebola and other
infectious diseases.
Back in 2003 an article on the decline of great apes, written by a team led by primatologist Peter Walsh, predicted that:
Without aggressive investments in law
enforcement, protected area management and Ebola prevention, the next
decade will see our closest relatives pushed to the brink of extinction.
Sadly, this prediction appears to have come true. Since 2008, the
IUCN has listed the Eastern Gorilla (Gorilla beringei) as endangered and
the Western Gorillas as critically endangered. If we do not act fast,
these may prove to be the last decades in which apes can continue to
live in their natural habitat. Unfortunately, there appears to be a lack
of political will to implement policies which would bring viable
solutions into effect.
We need both short-term solutions to halting the spread of Ebola and
long-term ones to prevent future outbreaks. As a short-term strategy,
vaccination could prove enormously useful in tackling the Ebola crisis
in apes. Unlike for humans, a vaccine for gorillas and apes has been
developed which thus far has been proven both safe and effective.
To date though, these trials have not involved “challenging” the
vaccinated chimps with the live virus. Across much of Europe, medical
research on great apes is either banned or highly restricted because of
their cognitive similarity to humans. The question is whether or not we
should make an exception in this case.
In the long term, conservation efforts aimed at restoring forest
habitat could also help curb the spread of the virus, as larger forested
areas would reduce the chances of infected animals coming into contact
with one another. In tandem with forest regeneration, greater protection
for apes from hunters and strict laws to control bushmeat consumption
would also be hugely beneficial, both for apes and for humans.