CHICAGO (Reuters) - More than 130 of the world's 600 primate species are endangered, from mountain gorillas of war-torn central Africa killed for their mythical powers to orphaned orangutans from Sumatra sold into the pet trade, experts said on Thursday.
But the habitat loss caused by logging, mining and encroachment by man may ultimately prove more devastating to the 138 threatened species of apes, monkeys and other primates than the outright slaughter of the animals -- in some cases for food or exotic medicines.
``You've got to have protected areas to ensure the survival of these animals,'' said Russell Mittermeier, a biologist with a specialty in primates and head of Conservation International.
He was among 400 primate experts from conservation groups, research organizations and zoos meeting sponsored by Brookfield Zoo near Chicago to discuss primates and their survival.
Fifty primate species are considered critically endangered and could become extinct within a few decades, and 88 other species are endangered, according to an analysis by the World Conservation Union, a group made up of 10,000 scientists.
Among the threatened primates are the bonobos, or pygmy chimpanzees, which live only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), said Gay Reinartz of the Milwaukee Zoological Society, who has done years of field research in the country.
``The bonobos are caught right in the middle of what some are calling Africa's first world war,'' she said. ``The fighting is splitting their range in half,'' and some are killed and eaten by hungry refugees driven into the forest by the war.
The many-sided conflict in the DRC, a country ranked fourth in the world in terms of biodiversity, also threatens populations of mountain and lowland gorillas and other species such as the okapi (forest giraffe), she said.
``The major threat to the bonobo right now is forestry and loss of habitat,'' Reinhart said.
The country's economy has collapsed and she said loggers were sharpening their saws waiting for the fighting to stop so they can go after the rich hardwood forests where most of the bonobos live.
Researchers said primate populations can be very slow to recover, as ape species have only three to four offspring over a lifetime. Habitat fragmentation can isolate small groups of animals, leaving them vulnerable to extinction due to a loss of genetic diversity.
In the Virunga Mountains straddling the DRC and Uganda, the influx of guns from the war has made it easier to prey on the famed mountain gorillas, said Inogwabini Bila-Issia, a wildlife researcher in the DRC who has studied gorillas.
``They think if you kill a gorilla you become very strong and your power as a man grows,'' he said, adding that some tribal leaders fashion hats out of the skin and the bones are considered mystical keepsakes.
Bushmeat from apes fetches a higher price than other meat sold in impoverished central Africa, Mittermeier said, and China has a lucrative medicinal market for animal parts, including primate bones from which a wine is made.
Because the war cuts off researchers' access, it is difficult to estimate the population of these often shy apes.
The illegal pet trade, along with devastating fires two years ago, has been deadly to many orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo in Indonesia, other researchers said.
Sumatra is losing 1,000 orangutans a year and has an estimated 6,000 left. Often the mothers are killed and their orphaned babies sold as pets, many in Taiwan and Thailand, Brookfield Zoo primate specialist Carol Sodaro said.
A road for miners and loggers that cuts through the fig-eating orangutans' range in Sumatra resulted in contact with humans that proved fatal to hundreds of the animals.
Borneo was devastated by fires in 1997-98, leaving between 10,000 and 15,000 orangutans compared to 60,000 in 1980.
Other endangered primate species include the gold lion tamarin on the Atlantic Coast of Brazil, the woolly spider monkey of Peru, and the lemurs of Madagascar.