This summer has seen the release of a blockbuster movie, acclaimed documentary and news-worthy research paper that all—in different but weirdly complementary ways—present sympathetic portraits of chimpanzees, our hirsute doppelgangers. So this is an ideal time for a proposed ban on invasive research on chimpanzees and other apes. A sponsor of the Great Ape Protection [...]

Nearly 3,000 chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and orangutans are illegally killed or stolen from the wild each year, according to a new report (pdf) from the United Nations Environmental Programme’s (UNEP) Great Apes Survival Partnership (GASP). The report, released to coincide with this week’s meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild [...]

As tens of thousands of refugees crowd into the area around Virunga National Park in the warn-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the animals that already lived there are getting squeezed out their native habitats. Some of them apparently aren’t too happy about it. Incidents of chimpanzee attacks on humans are reportedly on the [...]

When a wild animal is rescued from poachers or wildlife smugglers, conservationists usually make an effort to rehabilitate it and return it to life in its native habitat. But what if the animal contracted a disease from humans during captivity that could then be transmitted back to the rest of its species? Should that animal [...]

His name is Clay. He’s a happy, creative 24-year-old male who prefers to live in solitude. Although most of the time he is peaceful, he has been known to become aggressive and violent in a manner that can terrify the people who love him. If Clay were human, he would probably have been diagnosed with [...]

In a move that’s probably long overdue, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced last week that it will conduct a status review to determine if captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) should be reclassified from “threatened” to the more protected status “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Wild-born chimpanzees have been fully protected under [...]

The endangered eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in Rwanda’s Gishwati Forest could be doomed unless they increase their gene pool, an unlikely event if humans don’t get out of the way first, the Global Post reports. After decades of habitat loss, just 20 chimpanzees—up from 13 in 2008— live in the remaining 8.8 square kilometers [...]

Earlier this month, scientists for the Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance presented new research that predicted the extinction of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti), the world’s rarest chimpanzee subspecies, within as little as 20 years. Now, just a few weeks later, a conservation plan written by primate experts from 17 conservation groups and government agencies [...]

Red colobus monkeys in Uganda’s Kibale National Park are being hunted to extinction—by chimpanzees. According to a study published May 9 in the American Journal of Primatology, this is the first documented case of a nonhuman primate significantly overhunting another primate species. (The taxonomy of Ugandan red colobus monkeys is in dispute. Some scientists consider [...]

If I only had a private jet at my beck and call, I could zip around the country to all these fine exhibits… sigh! _____________ EXHIBITS: NORTHEAST REGION Princeton University’s ART of SCIENCE May 10, 2013 – Atrium, Friend Center Engineering Library Princeton University 35 Olden Street Princeton, NJ The Art of Science exhibition marks [...]