Home » Bonobo numbers in DRC park stable, but signs of decline appear

Bonobo numbers in DRC park stable, but signs of decline appear

Bonobo populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo‘s Salonga National Park remained steady between 2002 and 2018, but there are worrying signals of decline, a recent study has found. For decades, Salonga has been known to host the largest known population of bonobos (Pan paniscus), an endangered great ape found only in the DRC. However, […]

Bonobo populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo‘s Salonga National Park remained steady between 2002 and 2018, but there are worrying signals of decline, a recent study has found.

For decades, Salonga has been known to host the largest known population of bonobos (Pan paniscus), an endangered great ape found only in the DRC. However, researchers didn’t have a reliable estimate for bonobo numbers in the massive park, which spans more than 33,000 square kilometers (12,700 square miles) and includes a 9,000-km2 (3,500-mi2) corridor of human settlements.