Mongabay series: Great Apes

CROSS RIVER STATE, Nigeria — Sampson Akoba's long career as a ranger has left him with a wealth of assorted memories: hunters’ revolts, the death of his nephew in a…

Endangered mountain gorillas in Rwanda’s famous Volcanoes National Park could face "population collapse" within 50 years if some of them contract COVID-19, new research suggests. There are only around 1,000…

As a clear morning dawned on May 18, 2021, a baby was born. She was a gorilla, born to the Mapuwa family, one of 10 gorilla families in Virunga National…

Jorhat, INDIA - A lone hoolock gibbon jumps from one tree branch to another before taking a big final leap across the railway tracks that fragment its forested home into…

September 24 marks World Gorilla Day, set aside to celebrate these threatened giants of the forest as well as to renew calls for action to protect them. All gorilla species…

Peering back over the last 120,000 years, scientists have uncovered where chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) rode out past periods of global change, providing insights into how they might be affected by…

A new study suggesting bonding between male chimpanzees can increase success in siring offspring has whetted experts’ appetite for further research into the endangered species’ complex social behavior. The study,…

There may be far fewer bonobos in the wild than recent surveys have predicted, a new study concludes. Population surveys of bonobos (Pan paniscus) rely not on counting individual apes,…

Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos face a bleak future thanks to a perfect storm of human-driven factors, a recent study shows. The triple whammy of the climate crisis, growing human population,…

Mountain gorillas, one of the world’s endangered apes, appear be facing a fresh health threat after a successful conservation campaign saved them from looming extinction, a new study says. Thanks…

New research indicates that the global population of Grauer’s gorillas may be almost twice as high as previously estimated, leading to renewed optimism among conservationists about the future of the…

On Jan. 11 this year, something happened that primatologists had both feared and expected: two western lowland gorillas at San Diego Zoo Safari Park tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Right from…

JAKARTA — Orangutans in Borneo have been found to physically waste away when fruit is scarce — a finding with dire implications as human-driven climate change and the destruction of…

SOUTH TAPANULI, Indonesia — The death toll from a landslide at the site of a hydropower plant being built in Indonesia’s Batang Toru forest has risen to 10, with three…

JAKARTA — Three people are reportedly dead and nine are missing after a landslide hit the site of a planned hydropower plant in the only known habitat of the critically…

Veterinary ophthalmologist and avid wildlife photographer Rick Quinn describes himself as "an ordinary veterinarian who has a practice, and thought everything was completely satisfying, and then fell into the opportunity…

Over the past two decades, orangutan researcher Marc Ancrenaz watched as a tidal wave of oil palm has engulfed his once-forested research sites in northern Borneo. When he would find…

Two gorillas at San Diego Zoo in California have tested positive for COVID-19, in the first reported cases of great apes contracting the novel coronavirus. Three of the primates showed…

JAKARTA — Onrizal Onrizal remembers hearing stories of human-like creatures living in the forest when he was growing up in Sungai Dareh, a town in western Sumatra, Indonesia. Legend had…

JAKARTA — The survival of critically endangered wildlife like Sumatran orangutans and tigers and the livelihoods of Indigenous communities might be in jeopardy as the Indonesian government plans to establish…

North Sumatra is home to 1 of only 8 known great ape species in the world, the newly described Tapanuli orangutan, first classified in 2017 after its habits and DNA…

KANYAWARA, Uganda — As they hack their way with pangas through the dense and prickly undergrowth, a palpable sense of tension grips the camo-clad patrol party navigating the rainforest of…

Today we take a look at efforts to protect the Cross River gorilla, one of the world’s rarest great ape subspecies, which include a radio program broadcast to nearly 4…

On today's episode of the Mongabay Newscast we’re discussing great ape conservation in Africa and how that goes hand-in-hand with efforts to protect the second-largest rainforest in the world. Listen…

In 2008, a chimpanzee named Dorothy died suddenly due to heart failure at Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue in Cameroon. This year, another chimp battling cardiovascular disease, Tojo, died at Twycross Zoo…

JAKARTA — Developers of a hydropower dam that threatens the only known habitat of a critically endangered orangutan say they will push on despite calls from the IUCN for an…

To some humans, the idea of treating an orangutan as a person is absurd. For Leif Cocks, spending billions of dollars to find life on Mars while living beings are…

Experts estimate that nearly 2,000 chimpanzees may be lost to the wildlife trade each year. Once taken from the wild, young chimpanzees that survive the trauma of capture are sold…

The Cameroon prime minister’s office recently announced it was suspending plans to log Ebo Forest, a large intact forest system in southwestern Cameroon that spans 200,000 hectares (about 500,000 acres),…

The global spread of social media has created unparalleled opportunities for wildlife traffickers to advertise their illicit wares to potential buyers around the world. Traffickers can use platforms like Facebook…