The bonobo (Pan paniscus), which was classified by the IUCN Red List as Endangered in 2007 (Fruth et al. 2016), remains highly threatened across its range in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The biggest threat to bonobos is commercial and subsistence-based hunting, followed by habitat loss and disease (IUCN and ICCN 2012). Bonobos are facing increasing pressure as both urban and rural human populations engage in unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. Approximately 54% of the DRC’s human population is rural (World Bank 2022); these populations rely substantially on the country’s forests for their shelter, livelihoods, water, fuel, and food security. The most significant driver of deforestation and forest degradation in the DRC is small-scale agriculture (Potapov et al. 2012; Tyukavina et al. 2018) and fuelwood harvest (Chidumayo and Gumbo 2013). As human population numbers grow in size, agricultural expansion is predicted to increasingly reduce primary forest as more smallholders encroach into primary forests (Molinario et al. 2015; Turubanova et al. 2018). This encroachment, combined with other potential large-scale extraction of natural resources, including oil and minerals (Cannon 2018; Lawson 2021; Maclean and Searcy 2022), will result in extensive transformation of the Congo Basin’s rainforests. This transformation likely will lead to the elimination of many wildlife species, including bonobos, through reduced suitability of habitat.