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Africa's Great Apes in Peril
MiTEG writes "Scientific American is reporting that the number of great apes of western Africa declined by 56% between 1980 and 2002. The decrease is larger than previous estimates because it was found that deforestation is not the only substantial cause of population reduction. Other significant causes of death are poachers and the Ebola virus."
But Even at the most base, survivalistic level, you need them to live. why? because the diseases that can wipe these animals out are the diseases that can wipe us out. All ethical considerations of conservation and the morality of medical testing aside, we need creatures running around with something close to our DNA
I'm not in favor of the extinction of any animals, but I have to say that your argument just doesn't make sense. If there were no more apes or monkeys, then their natural diseases would not be ingested by the poor Africans that eat their meat, and then their natural diseases would not spread to the general population of the world. Without any apes or monkeys, ape and monkey diseases would not be crossing over to our species.
There are probably a lot of good reasons to save the Great Apes, but protection from disease is NOT one of them. From the standpoint of protection from disease, Great Apes and all other non-human primates are nothing but walking incubation chambers for brain and immunodeficiency viruses that will cross over to our species and kill us once they've matured. African primates would save more lives by being extinct than by being alive. Africa is going to continue to be poverty stricken for a very, very long time, so there will be poor, hungry Africans eating their brains for a very, very long time, and in that time several new viruses will cross the species barrier and potentially travel into Europe, Asia, or the entire world.