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.…
The word came in that a small chimp was for sale up the road near Aketi, a town in remote, northernmost Democratic Republic of the Congo. The seller: a policeman…
It is regarded as the deadliest Ebola outbreak in human history: the 2014-2016 epidemic in West Africa claimed the lives of 11,325 people and resulted in 28,652 suspected, probable, and…
The path of a major highway project in eastern Nigeria has been altered in response to concerns from local and international groups about its impact on wildlife and communities. The…
Ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has taken a heavy toll on the country’s women, with sexual violence there gaining the DRC a label as the…
YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Two male chimps, Avi and Max, take turns inside an electric-fenced compound where eight Central chimpanzees are housed at the Mefou Primate Sanctuary not far from Cameroon’s…
Boxing orangutans at Safari World in Bangkok, Thailand. Video courtesy of PEGAS fter 146 years of operation, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is closing its circus, citing dwindling…
Great apes should be humanity’s best bet for conservation — charismatic, intelligent, strikingly familiar, with big emoting eyes. It’s hard to think of creatures with whom the public empathizes more…
Ekwoge Abwe’s fight drags on. As the manager of the Ebo Forest Research Centre (EFRP), he’s been part of a long running battle to set-up a national park conserving Cameroon’s…
Switzerland is home to CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. But that doesn’t mean it is immune from wildlife trafficking, or that…
On the surface, the Republic of Congo appears to be making strides toward both conservation and economic development. But the process of becoming an emerging economy is not without its…
A state government in Nigeria has announced that it will scale back plans to create a buffer zone along its embattled 260-kilometer (162-mile) superhighway project, which conservation groups have warned…
