Bonobos threatened by flu

[DMB]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6036340.ece

Bonobos are already very vulnerable. This is heartbreaking.

[Sodong]

It is. I wonder how much they understand about what's happening to them. I wouldn't hazard a guess.

[VoxRat]

A MYSTERIOUS flu-like disease is sweeping through the imperilled bonobo apes in their last havens in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's kind of amazing, given the importance of this species and the precariousness of its survival, that they haven't figured out exactly what virus is responsible. I'll have to alert some of my virology colleagues to this story.

[Sodong]

There's a link to a refuge with some more personal accounts of the situation here (http://lolayabonobo.wildlifedirect.org/tag/bonobos-dying-of-flu/) that I found. It looks like a fund-raising page or something, with a blog.

[Sodong]

And on a related note (http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/bonobo/cons), There are a number of pathogenic (http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/glossary#206) and parasitic (http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/glossary#204) diseases that affect bonobos in the wild. Respiratory, gastrointestinal (http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/glossary#), cutaneous (http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/glossary#208), or systemic bacterial infections can range in severity from latency to death (Whittier et al. 2001). Salmonella, Steptococcus, and Staphylococcus are common agents that can be found within the environment or can be transferred between humans and bonobos (Whittier et al. 2001). Other infectious agents that affect bonobos include viruses (poliovirus, measles, herpes, hepatitis, Ebola (http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/glossary#209), etc.), fungal infections (ringworm), and parasites, both ectoparasitic (http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/glossary#210) and endoparasitic (http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/glossary#211) (Giardia, Cryptosporidium, Schistosoma, Strongyloides, etc.) (Whittier et al. 2001). While there may be some natural background rate of these diseases, certainly epidemics of some could threaten entire populations of bonobos. Unnatural exposure to these and other diseases could lead to rapid extinction in non-immune bonobos or very small populations of bonobos. As humans and bonobos come into close contact because of population growth, habituation (http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/glossary#21) to researchers, and hunting, the probability of disease transmission between species increases (Butynski 2001).

[Ray Moscow]

Did anyone start a Po thread about how God is smiting the bonobos because of their chosen, sexually loose lifestyle?