Shock Bonobo extinction threat?

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The Bonobo - a species of Chimpanzee made famous for the fact that their societies are founded on sexual relations - have been found shockingly absent from their major reserve, the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Where once they had been easily found and encountered, researchers found nothing but a few physical remains, and a single bonobo call in the trees. No live animals were found in the national park.

In a country racked by civil war and armed conflicts with neighbouring African States, Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation, which runs the national parks in the Congo Basin, has been completely unable to cope. The dense jungle has become a hiding ground for armed milita groups, and rampant poverty in areas of conflict has made the Bonobos easy prey for the bushmeat trade.

Estimates of the Bonobo population are now being made at around 10,000 to 50,000 individuals, but with numbers

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