Epidemics
Infectious disease is a potential threat to the future of the chimpanzees. Emerging diseases are being detected in West Africa chimpanzee populations (e.g., Boesch 2008) and even the fragmented nature of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee populations may not provide a barrier to limit the spread of disease outbreak in the region.

Poaching

As the human population has grown steadily in both Cameroon and Nigeria, the ease of access to arms, more efficient transport systems, and higher financial incentives for supplying urban markets with bushmeat and other forest commodities has led to a ‘bushmeat crisis’. Land formerly important as wildlife sources have been cleared of animals. Chimpanzees are hunted to supply the bushmeat trade and, to provide traditional medicines.There are large areas of suitable chimpanzee habitat in the Okwangwo division of the Cross River National Park and the adjacent Takamanda National Park where chimpanzees are encountered at low frequencies, and which suffer from high hunting pressure. In a six-month study of rural markets in southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon in 2002–2003, Fa et al recorded 240 chimpanzee carcasses. During a survey in 2009 in a five-week period in the region of Cross River State, Nigeria, WCS found six chimpanzee carcasses. Many of the carcasses found in eastern Nigerian markets probably derive from Cameroon and are traded with Nigeria where there are more people and where bushmeat fetches higher prices. Although most chimpanzees are hunted with guns, they are also caught in snares set for terrestrial animals. Given the slow reproductive rate of chimpanzees, and the limited number of chimpanzees persisting in the wild in many areas, this hunting pressure cannot be sustainable.

Population Fragmentation
If there is no exchange between the groups, reproduction is lacking and the lack of mixing of the gene pool leads to hereditary diseases. This combination of loss of habitat and hunting has been gradually fragmenting populations of P. t. ellioti, so that many of the remaining populations are now small and isolated. They are therefore at increased risk of extinction from disease and other unpredictable events.

War

In late 2017, riots broke out in the southwest region. They began from protests by the English-speaking population against a lack of infrastructure measures by the French-speaking central government and against government discrimination in schools and in the courts. The central government in Yaoundé responded with military action, whereupon peaceful protest turned to violence. Because the gorilla habitats are all in the English-speaking region, more and more international conservation organizations have been forced to withdraw from their protected areas. In 2019, Planet B was the only local NGO that managed to enter the Takamanda National Park and implement projects.