Chimps are dying of human sniffles. Is great ape tourism to blame?

Viruses that cause the common cold in humans are devastating populations of chimpanzees and gorillas. In some ape communities, it's a bigger killer than habitat loss or poachingThere was something wrong with the chimpanzees. For weeks, a community of 205 animals in Uganda's Kibale national park had been coughing, sneezing and looking generally miserable. But no one could say for sure what ailed them, even as the animals began to die.Necropsies can help to identify a cause of death, but normally, the bodies of chimps are found long after decomposition has set in, if at all. So when Tony Goldberg, a US wildlife epidemiologist visiting Kibale, got word that an adult female named Stella had been found freshly dead, he knew this was a rare opportunity to look for an answer. Continue reading...