Chimpanzees

There is news coming out from West Africa about the rapid decline of chimpanzees in that region:

"Reuters quotes Pepe Soropogui, head of the chimpanzee investigation at the Bossou Environmental Research Institute, as saying their are no more than 12 West African chimpanzees in southeast Guinea, down from 30 in 2002. Apparently no one knows why they have disappeared."

What is particularly interesting is a quote from a primatologist:

"'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,' Reuters quoted Marie Claude Gauthier of the Jane Goodall Institute for wildlife research and conservation as saying. 'Nothing has been ruled out. It is a mystery,' she added."