Mongabay series: Great Apes

IJARE, Nigeria — The silver blade slides through the log laid over a metal bed beneath the sawmill machine. When the careful routine ends, one of the two operators pulls…

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…

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…

The peatlands of the Congo Basin are home to more than just massive carbon stocks and some of our closest — and most threatened — relatives in the animal kingdom,…

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…

Logging for timber by definition reduces tree cover. But what happens when logging stops? A new study has found that in concessions where timber firms have stopped operating, deforestation actually…

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 — 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…

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…

Elephant poachers are using logging roads to infiltrate some of the last remaining pristine forests in Central Africa, according to a study published in July. The study’s authors also revealed…

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…

A new study of western chimpanzees in southwestern Sierra Leone finds they are adapting to survive in severely degraded habitat. But researchers say this doesn’t obviate the need to minimize…

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…

BUKIT BAKA BUKIT RAYA NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia -- In the heart of Indonesian Borneo, a dwindling population of orangutans is getting a new lease on life thanks to a group of…

For almost four years, the teams of researchers traveled by boat up winding rivers, setting up base camps inside dense rainforests for weeks or months at a time as they…

BASANKUSU, Democratic Republic of Congo — On a sultry morning in the densely forested Équateur province, Victor Likofata and Ibrahim Walelo perch on the edge of a long dugout canoe…

Chimpanzees in Gabon's Loango National Park have tortoises on their menu. For the first time, researchers have observed the great apes vigorously smashing forest hinge-back tortoises (Kinixys erosa) against tree…

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…

JAKARTA — Inspired by an article on Mongabay, a documentary film on the world’s rarest and most threatened great ape species is now racking up awards on the international film…

A typical morning in the village of Phlangwanbroi starts with a melodious yet primitive-sounding song: drifting over from the nearby community forest, a series of whoops, hoots and tones rise…

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…