VOA常速英语:Endangered Primate Offers Clues to Climate Change

Nelson Ting / University of Oregon

“Knowing more about the natural history and ecology will definitely help designating conservation priorities for an animal that is really struggling with a lot of different pressures right now,” said Ting, who is the lead author of the drill study that appeared in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

Now like then

Conditions now appear similar to what happened 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. There’s rainforest loss, rising temperatures and dryer weather. But back then, the Bantu people began migrating from the Nigeria/Cameroon area. They introduced agriculture and iron smelting as they migrated, which may have also contributed to forest loss. Whether the Bantu hunted the drill is unclear, but its meat is certainly prized today.

Ting said, “The larger concern right now for the drill is not actually climate change. That certainly is a concern down the road. But probably hunting is actually the largest problem with the drill right now. If we can protect large areas of forest, that will lead to protection of habitat. If we can protect it effectively, we can protect the animal from hunting. And then we can also buffer any kind of future effects of climate change as well. That would be ideal.”

He added that in science the key to the present and the future is often found in the past. Scientists say the history of the drill could help them understand what could lie in store for Africa’s rainforests over the next 100 years.