STATUS Endangered

POPULATION 172,700 to 299,700

SCIENTIFIC NAME Pan troglodytes

HABITATS Forests (moist and dry forests)

Like us, chimps are highly social animals, care for their offspring for years and can live to be over 50. In fact, chimpanzees are our closest cousins; we share about 98 percent of our genes.

In their habitat in the forests of central Africa, chimpanzees spend most of their days in the tree tops. When they do come down to earth, chimps usually travel on all fours, though they can walk on their legs like humans for as far as a mile. They use sticks to fish termites out of mounds and bunches of leaves to sop up drinking water.

Results from the largest ever research study of gorillas and chimpanzees in Western Equatorial Africa show population numbers higher than first believed, but their future still remains in peril.

Despite our shared lineage, humans are pushing chimpanzees toward extinction. Chimps have already disappeared completely from four countries and are under tremendous pressure everywhere else they live.

ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE Poaching is another prominent threat. Bushmeat has always been a primary food source in Central and West Africa, but in recent years poaching has become commercialized to satisfy the appetites of wealthy urban residents. Infant chimpanzees are frequently taken alive and sold in cities as pets.

DISEASE Disease also stalks chimpanzees: Ebola outbreaks have killed tens of thousands of great apes.

WWF establishes, strengthens, and manages protected areas in Central and West Africa. In Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Cameroon and other countries, we:

protect chimpanzees through antipoaching and effective law enforcement
help governments establish and manage national parks
monitor chimpanzee populations
encourage sustainable use of forest resources in park buffer zones
build trans-boundary collaboration to develop partnerships between neighboring countries

We also develop chimpanzee-focused ecotourism and work to stop illegal poaching in logging concessions. WWF continues to look for ways to reduce the impact of the bushmeat trade on apes and other endangered species.