CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Filmmaker Irene Magafan recently completed a documentary called “The Bonobo Connection.” Her film tells about a family of bonobos at the zoo in Columbus, Ohio.
Bonobos are the rarest apes in captivity. There are fewer than two hundred of the animals kept in zoos in the United States and Europe. And they are the least-studied of all the great apes. Irene Magafan says bonobos are the most endangered African ape.
IRENE MAGAFAN: “Biggest threat to bonobos is by far the bush meat trade. People are hunting bonobos; they're killing these animals, and they’re taking them back to market to sell them.”
FAITH LAPIDUS: The Bonobo Conservation Initiative has worked with the government and local communities to create two protected nature areas, including one that is larger than the nation of Belgium. Lola Ya Bonobo is the only bonobo sanctuary in the world. It is near Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC. Orphaned bonobos are nursed back to health there. If possible, they are returned to the wild.
Filmmaker Irene Magafan says that, in making sure there is a protected area for bonobos to return to, we are also helping ourselves. She says the animals live in the second-largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon rainforest. She calls these rainforests the “lungs of the earth.” She says, “this is how our earth breathes. The Congo rainforest is where we get a lot of our medicines, and it is where the earth gets a lot of its oxygen, so imagine us losing that!”
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25