Residents Attack Research Center After Simpanse Kills Baby

Chimpanzee illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Rowena Facee Schaeffer)

JAKARTA Residents living near a chimpanzee research center in Guinea attacked the facility on Friday last week, after a woman said one animal had killed its baby, the central manager said.

Crowds of angry residents ransacked buildings, destroyed and burned equipment including unmanned aircraft, computers and more than 200 documents, the central manager said.

Witnesses said the crowd reacted to news that the dismembered baby's body had been found 3 km (1.9 miles) from the Nimba Mountains Nature Reserve, which is listed as the UNESCO World Heritage Site, cited from CNN, September 21.

The child's mother, Seny Zogba, told Reuters she was working in a cassava field when a chimpanzee came from behind, bit her and pulled the baby into the forest.

Meanwhile, local ecologist Alidjiou Sylla said the food supplies that were running low in the reserve encouraged animals to leave the protected area more often, thereby increasing the possibility of attacks.

The research center said it had recorded six chimpanzee attacks on humans inside the reserve since the beginning of the year.

It is known that the forests of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa are the largest homes for endangered western chimpanzee populations, which are expected to have fallen by 80 percent between 1990 and 2014, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

There are only seven chimpanzees left in the Bossou forest of Guinea, which is part of the Nimba Mountains Nature Reserve, and is close to the subsistent agricultural community in the Nzerekore Region.

It is known that chimpanzees are respected in Guinea and traditionally given gifts in the form of food, prompting some chimpanzees to leave protected areas and enter human settlements, where they can sometimes strike.

On the other hand, the Nimba Mountains are also home to one of Guinea's largest iron ore reserves, which has raised concerns among environmentalists about the impact of mining on chimpanzees.