OHOFIA, Nigeria — The fading sunlight, half-coned and yellow, turns the evening murky. The crowing of roosters mingles with the rattling of motorbikes as farmers make their way home from…
BOKÉ, Guinea — As he looks out on a landscape devastated by bauxite mining, Lamarana Camara remembers when chimpanzees would wander freely through the thick forests that once surrounded his…
On today’s episode, we talk to primatologist Cleve Hicks, who recently led a research team that discovered a new tool-using chimp culture in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Listen here:…
There’s a chimpanzee population in Western Africa that uses tools to crack open nuts. Scientists theorize that this behavior provides the chimps with access to an important source of food…
DJOUM, Cameroon — “This right there used to be hell.” It’s early February 2019, deep in the tropical rainforest in southeastern Cameroon, the day after a night of heavy downpour.…
GOMBE, Tanzania — On the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika, 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of the town of Kigoma in Tanzania, lies the green, dense forest of Gombe National…
Chimpanzees' health is not just an issue of concern for conservationists or animal rights activists. Great apes can spread plagues of biblical proportions — the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) first…
Imagine traipsing through a forest, growing thirsty, and stumbling on a small pool of water in the knot of a log. How would you drink it? If you had a…
The illicit great ape trade involves a fusion of brutality and financial sophistication. Unlike most forms of wildlife trafficking, where animals are killed on the spot, the trafficking of great…
You probably use it every day and don’t think once about gorillas. In today’s world, it’s almost impossible to get by without a mobile phone, but they’re wreaking havoc for…
Entebbe, Uganda — At the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Center in Entebbe, a steady stream of school buses drops off hundreds of children from across eastern Uganda. The center, located…
COPPERBELT, Zambia — Thirty-five years ago, a game ranger in Zambia confiscated a baby chimpanzee from poachers who had smuggled it from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It was…
The Republic of Congo has officially created its fifth national park, lending protection to great apes, forest elephants and other threatened wildlife. The new Ogooué-Leketi National Park spans 3,500 square…
Cecilia spent more than 30 years locked up without a trial. After the death of her companions, she spent her days and nights alone in a small cage with bare…
More than 30 scientists and leaders in environmental conservation are calling for the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award Jane Goodall with the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. Citing the 84-year-old primatologist’s…
On this episode, we look at research into an African bat that might be the key to controlling future Ebola outbreaks. Listen here: Our guest is Sarah Olson, an…
Ebola is once again sweeping Africa, this time in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a new outbreak was announced Aug. 1. As of Sept. 30, the World Health…
Though it is a highly controversial practice due to the many ethical concerns it raises, the use of nonhuman primates (NHPs), mostly monkeys, as research subjects has led to advances…
Hunting for meat consumption and the bushmeat trade is threatening several species of hornbills in Ghana, in some cases leading to their complete disappearance, according to a recent study. Ecologist…
Leveraging the most comprehensive dataset ever compiled for the gorillas and chimpanzees that live in western Central Africa, scientists have concluded that there are more of the two subspecies than…
Chimps have been taught to sound an alarm when poachers approach; polar bears and condors have been trained to avoid towns; and even butterflies can learn new tricks.
Thousands of square kilometers of the world’s second-largest rainforest, the Congo Basin, sit on the verge of destruction, according to a new report released today by Earthsight, the London-based non-profit…
The equatorial ecosystems of the Albertine Rift are packed with plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth. Formed as tectonic plates in eastern Africa have slowly pulled away from…
Researchers have captured a camera trap photograph of a spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) in a national park in Gabon where the predator hasn’t been seen for two decades. Conservation groups…
As timber companies move into Central Africa’s forests, apes increasingly have to find ways to survive in the altered forests they call home. Scientists still don’t know the full impact…
A small but important group of Endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimps – just one of four left in Cameroon – have gone missing. Conservationists blame a new road.
This week’s podcast featured a discussion between Mongabay’s founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler and Jane Goodall, the world’s most recognizable conservationist and one of this media outlet’s esteemed advisory…
The Liberian government designated a new national park in August 2017 that will protect an important population of Critically Endangered western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus), as well as several other…
“It was a complete breakthrough for me to realize that sharing from the heart, which is the opposite of what we’re taught to do as scientists, was the way for…
Research published in the American Journal of Primatology earlier this month finds that the overall Western Chimpanzee population has declined by more than 80 percent over the past quarter century.…
