Chimpanzees — our closest living relatives — face severe welfare challenges from forest loss, bushmeat hunting, and human disease transmission that threaten remaining populations across Africa.
Chimpanzee welfare and conservation are inseparable — individual welfare harms drive population decline, and population decline reduces the social complexity that individual welfare requires. Chimpanzees orphaned by bushmeat hunters experience profound trauma: witnessing their mother's death, periods of starvation, and the acute stress of capture and transport. Sanctuary rehabilitation requires years of skilled care replicating the social learning environment of wild chimpanzee communities. In the wild, habitat fragmentation isolates chimpanzee communities, reducing genetic diversity and the social group sizes that define normal chimp welfare. Disease transmission from human visitors — a manageable risk with proper protocols — has caused documented mortality in research and tourism communities. Protecting large contiguous forest areas is the single most impactful intervention for both wild chimpanzee welfare and conservation.