Monday, March 06, 2006

Peaceful, sex-loving chimps being eaten to extinction

Imagine being so peaceloving that you greet your friends with genital "handshakes" and sensual body bumps, and that you resolve squabbles with sex instead of violence.

Unfortunately, the chimpanzees that live like hippie flower children also taste good!

The bonobo chimpanzees, native only to the rain forest of the Congo in Africa, are rapidly disappearing. In 1984, there were an estimated 100,000 of them; today, thanks to being hunted and killed for their tasty meat by poor villagers who sell their meat to "clandestine" restaurants in the cities, there are fewer than 5,000.

Despite all the sex, female bonobos only give birth once every five years, making it difficult for the species to replenish itself faster than they are being killed. Poachers kill them by getting the chimps drunk with wine, or by shooting them, and often kill 20 or more at a time by leaving poison meat for the chimps.

Local police don't enforce the laws; no one seems to understand the concept of extinction and everyone seems to enjoy the flavor of bonobo chimp, CNN reports.

"What can we do if bonobo meat is tasty?" the deputy chief of police said.

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