New York, NY -
While the so-called more reputable press has been busy printing stories about endangered birds, TheRealTruth has learned that an environmental agency for the United Nations is predicting the extinction of the great apes within the next 15 to 20 years unless drastic actions are taken immediately. The great apes include chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans, all of which share 96 percent of their DNA with humans and are our closest living relatives. According to a source within the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization who wishes to remain anonymous, the UN's Great Apes Survival Project estimates that if current trends continue the great apes will disappear by the year 2020.

Chimpanzees, the most numerous of the great apes, have already totally disappeared from Benin, Gambia, and Togo, and it is estimated that there are only 200 to 400 left in Senegal, 300 to 500 in Ghana, and fewer than 200 in Guinea Bissau. Statistics on the other great apes are sparse, but their numbers are thought to be smaller than those of the chimpanzees. In total there are believed to be fewer than 50,000 great apes remaining in all of Asia and Africa. As little as a hundred years ago they numbered in the millions.

The causes of this mass extinction are all due to man. They range from poachers shooting them for trophies to humans encroaching on the rain forests where they live. Smugglers also kidnap their babies to sell as exotic pets, and civil wars cause as much havoc with the great apes as they do with human beings.

To prevent their extinction the UN's Great Apes Survival Project says it needs at least $25 million per year for programs to save them. Among those programs are more resources for law enforcement to prevent poaching and smuggling and the establishment of large rain forest preserves in all the major countries of Asia and Africa.

This is THE REAL TRUTH !