On today's episode of the Mongabay Newscast we explore animal culture and social learning with author Carl Safina and whale researcher Hal Whitehead. Listen here: It was once widely…
Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka first saw Rafiki in 2001 while conducting research for her master’s degree in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda. At that time, Rafiki, a mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei…
Eating crops is a risky business for chimpanzees, who run the risk of injury or death if they are caught by farmers protecting their livelihoods. But new research shows that…
In January 2017, researchers noticed two ill chimpanzees in Taï National Park in Côte d'Ivoire. The baby and adolescent West African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) were coughing, breathing hard, and…
Between 2002 and 2005, a series of Ebola outbreaks spread through the forests of northwest Republic of Congo. Dozens of people died. For the region’s western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla…
The Hainan gibbon was once teetering and tottering at the precipice of extinction. In the 1950s, there were about 2,000 individuals living in Hainan, a tropical island at the southernmost…
In the 1960s, there were an estimated 1 million wild chimpanzees in West Africa. Today, there are fewer than 300,000. With habitat loss, hunting and wildlife trafficking taking their toll,…
In mid-December 2019, a team of veterinarians and caregivers looked on as a gorilla named Freedom quickly disappeared out of sight, the pounding of his feet on the forest floor…
JAKARTA — The COVID-19 pandemic has become the latest threat to the Tapanuli orangutan in Indonesia, the rarest great ape species of all and one already under severe pressure from…
In the early morning hours of Feb. 23, a gunshot rang out from deep within a Congolese forest. And then another, followed by one last bang. The shots were fired…
Dramatic images of orangutans being rescued from clear-cut forests are ubiquitous on the web and in nature magazines, but new research suggests that rather than being a crucial tool for…
In the 23 years since founding Volcanoes Safaris, Praveen Moman has weathered a range of crises in the region around Rwanda and Uganda: Ebola outbreaks, economic strife, kidnappings, political unrest.…
Nigeria's Ekiti state government has moved to establish a conservation area within the Ise Forest Reserve, an important step toward protecting the habitat of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti).…
Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo shut its doors to tourists this week in an attempt to protect its great apes from possibly being infected by the…
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, gorilla conservation teams are working to ensure that Africa’s endangered mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), and the people who protect them, remain safe. Gorillas are…
JAKARTA — Critics and supporters of a dam that threatens the only known population of Tapanuli orangutans are at loggerheads over whether to carry out an independent scientific study of…
By supporting programs aimed at securing the economic well-being of communities in Nigeria's Cross River state, the European Union hopes to help protect Cross River gorillas (Gorilla gorilla diehli), Africa's…
Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) may be avoiding their neighbors, according to a new study that presents evidence of territoriality among gorilla groups in the Republic of Congo. Using…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Conservation and wildlife activists have called on Indonesian authorities to press criminal charges against a local politician found to have kept a threatened baby orangutan as a…
Images of wild western lowland gorillas have been captured by camera traps deep in the jungles of central mainland Equatorial Guinea, marking the first time that the region’s gorillas have…
PONTIANAK, Indonesia — As the forests of Indonesian Borneo burned during fires last year, a female orangutan was forced to leave her burning home. When she was rescued from a…
JAKARTA — Proponents of a hydropower plant to be built in the only known habitat of a critically endangered orangutan species say it’s important for meeting the future energy needs…
JAKARTA — The fires that raze vast swaths of Indonesian Borneo every year are having a lasting health impact on the region’s critically endangered orangutans that threatens them with extinction,…
A ceaselessly growing human population and an ever-expanding world economy based on the unsustainable demands of a few over-consuming nations, have already caused habitat degradation, forest fragmentation, and forest loss…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, the only known habitat of the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), has proven to be a precarious place for the ape. Just 800 individuals survive…
The outlook for eastern Africa's mountain gorillas is growing brighter, as a recent census released on Dec. 16 shows that the subspecies’ numbers have risen since 2011. Scientists believe there…
Salt clearings deep in the Congo basin host numerous breeding groups of Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). These intelligent social mammals usually reside in groups of two to eight…
When the Tapanuli orangutan was discovered in 2017 in the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia, it became the eighth known species of great ape in the world (including humans). The last…
JAKARTA — A severely injured and malnourished orangutan has been rescued from a plantation near a Sumatra forest where a hydropower project threatens the only known habitat of this particular…
OKUNI, Nigeria — The bulldozers returned to the forests of Cross River state in southeastern Nigeria in January. Their metal blades resumed tearing down rainforest, rubber and cocoa plantations, homes…
