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 the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts had assumed great apes would be susceptible to the virus. IUCN great ape specialists sent out a document […]
Tag: Gorilla gorilla gorilla
For tool-wielding chimps of Ebo Forest, logging plan is a ‘death sentence’
Fifteen years ago, Ekwoge Abwe was trekking through Ebo Forest in Cameroon when he heard something cracking in the distance. He scanned the forest, searching for the source of the sound. “One of my local assistants said, ‘Those are chimpanzees cracking nuts,’” Abwe, a biologist, postdoctoral fellow at San Diego Zoo Global and manager of […]
Gorilla gorilla gorilla…
The triple barreled scientific name of the Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) aptly mirrors the number of major threats which this species faces in its struggle for survival. The constant threat of being hunted for bushmeat for an ever growing population; the rapid destruction of habitat from mining, logging and agriculture; and the perilous […]