Research carried out into the impact of changes to chimpanzee habitats found they have adapted to human developments in a number of ways – including learning how to cross roads safely - but their survival is still threatened.
Research carried out into the impact of changes to chimpanzee habitats found they have adapted to human developments in a number of ways – including learning how to cross roads safely - but their survival is still threatened.
A team of anthropologists from the University’s School of Anthropology and Conservation and universities in Spain, in collaboration with the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone, made their discoveries from hidden cameras during an eight-month study in the African country.
Although chimpanzees living in fragmented habitats cross roads to move from one area to another of their home range and may approach human settlements, any further road widening, tarmacking or expansion and urbanisation could significantly affect their distribution and abundance.
Consequently, the research team suggests care with infrastructure development, as well as developing agreements with farmers to allow strategic fallow areas to regenerate into community-managed forest refuges providing corridors for wildlife and vital natural resources and ecosystem services for both humans and wildlife.
Read more at University of Kent
Image: Moyamba chimp with mangoes-Camera trap images (Credit: Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary (TCS)/DICE, University of Kent)
