promote awareness of the plight of the great apes

and angry when I read things like this: Missing DR Congo gorillas ‘dead’

Chimpanzees ‘hunt using spears’

The authors conclude that their findings support a theory that females may have played a similarly important role in the evolution of tool technology among early humans.

In danger of extinction: Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla

Courage, who has spent most of his life with gorillas, once stepped over the line, and almost did not live to tell the tale. In 2000, he was with a huge silverback male called Kola when he went too close to a female in season. Kola’s subsequent attack was ferocious.

“I had been with the gorillas for four years in the Congo, and I thought I knew them well,” he says. “But I stupidly ignored the fact that wild animals in season need to be avoided. Kola thought I was competition, and jumped on me. With another female in the group they pinned me down, and bit me for 10 minutes. They tried to bite my balls off – I think they wanted to neuter me. I was only saved by another male who I had helped raise, who dragged me away and kept Kola at bay, as I staggered back to the camp.”

bonobo sanctuary pics at the bbc.

Subsumed now under encourage biophilia

On this morning’s Today show on BBC Radio 4 there was a short interview with Stanley Johnson (a senior adviser to the United Nations Great Apes Survival Project) on what was happening to orang utans in Borneo by the relentless spread of palm oil plantations in the primary rain forests.

One out of ten products bought in UK supermarkets use palm oil, which should be sourced in a sustainable manner. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil exists for this purpose however major companies such as Tesco have not signed up to RSPO and Johnson said that this was a scandal.

An article from September 05 on Palm oil demand driving orang-utan to extinction

...Eating Apes

By Dale Peterson, and Karl Amman

...my rant on this topic

...that I ever would be able to track mountain gorillas, and after the discussion below with Stine1, I have decided to change this goal.

track mountain gorillas -> promote awareness of the plight of the great apes

• Inform yourself
• Inform Others
• Debate
• Act Politically

.. you can go on to do this. Can be expensive, but would love to go on one.