They Tried to Make Me Go to a Reserve, I Said Bonobo

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Congo nature preserve set up to protect bonobos

Posted at 10:04 AM on 20 Nov 2007

A swath of Congo rainforest larger than the state of Massachusetts will be designated as a nature reserve in a collaborative effort between American and Congolese environmental groups and agencies. Advocates hope the reserve will be a significant step toward protecting the endangered bonobo, one of humans' closest ape relations. Bonobos, which live only in the Congo, are often targeted by poachers. They are also the only primates other than humans known to have sex not just for procreation, but for pleasure. And if that's not worth preserving, we don't know what is.

sources: The New York Times, Mongabay
see also, in Grist: Saving bonobos with sex

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Comments: (5 comments)

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great title!!

love it.

by dearjulia at 1:26 PM on 20 Nov 2007

title

Apparently somebody is trying to put the bone into bonobo.

Anyway, how do they know that other animals don't enjoy sex. My dog seems to think its great. I will admit he doesn't seem to have much finesse.

by hikerreese at 11:05 PM on 20 Nov 2007

filthy animals!

My church and I support the protection of mountain gorillas. They are not promiscuous and the guy on top of the social ladder is allowed to have many wives. We believe, in fact, that Moses got the stone tablets directly from God in the form of a gorilla. These filthy, sexually "liberated" bonobos should be wiped off the face of the earth.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

by John former Marine at 5:06 AM on 21 Nov 2007

"close relations"

Gosh, John former Marine, here all along I had had you pegged for a Flying-Spaghetti-Monster-ist.

In animal-rights ethics, it is a bit controversial what status the closeness of an animal's evolutionary relation to human beings should have. Should chimpanzees and bonobos receive more consideration from us than, say, gorillas? Should we have regard for all the great apes, but not the gibbons? Do we draw the line around all apes, but not the monkeys? Or about all apes and monkeys, but not lemurs?

Really, all living creatures on this planet are related, and we owe them all respect. That does not at all mean that we must treat them all the same. But we should recognize that their lives have value; and being independent living beings, they have interests of their own, which our human interests do not automatically trump.

Anyway, human beings are all related to other human beings even more closely than to bonobos, and see how far that realization has got us! Why, the recent history of just the DRC itself might tempt us to abandon all hope.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:42 PM on 21 Nov 2007

In the mood for lurve?

This is excellent news. Any efforts that make true headway into conserving our natural wilderness areas should be applauded.

That said, it is a tiny area that we're talking about here. At 11,000 square miles the area of this reserve is only around 1% of the Congo. Still, as there may be as few as 5,000 of these creatures left anything that gives them a fighting chance for survival is a good move. Let's hope their newly found freedom get's them into the party swing and sees their promiscuity sky-rocket their population.

C'mon guys, it's party time. Party time!

Steve N. Lee
Author of eco-suspense thriller 'What if...?' and
free eco-guide 'An Inconvenient Doofus' available from www.Steve-N-Lee.com

by SteveNLee at 2:04 AM on 28 Nov 2007

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