It's About Animals newspaper columns that appear weekly in 7 New York City newspapers. Scientists who specialize in primate species are cautioning that some of our closest relatives now face the threat of extinction. These chimpanzees, gorillas, apes and monkeys have seen other species perish throughout the last century and, if things do not change soon, these animals who are the closest connection to humans, may someday be found only in museums, zoos, wildlife parks and on CD-ROM encyclopedias.
Primates are the mammals that are humankind's closest biological relatives.
They help the forest by being pollinators, seed predators, and seed dispersers. Most primates live in tropical, developing countries, and humans compete with them for resources. Primates that raid crops because they are hungry and need to feed themselves and their families are shot or poisoned. The forest habitat that is home to most species is being logged and cleared at an alarming rate by commercial loggers and subsistence farmers for land and firewood. Live capture of some primates for the pet trade and for export for biomedical research has become a lesser concern in recent decades, but is still a problem for some species.