Chimpanzee News - Other Great Apes

Cajoling bored friends to keep playing with you is not limited to humans. A gorilla that wants to continue a game will also try to do this, and will even deliberately lose if necessary. This hints that gorillas may have "theory of mind" – the capacity to attribute mental states to others.

Richard Byrne and Joanne Tanner of St Andrews University in the UK videoed gorillas at San Francisco Zoo. As well as engaging with a toy and another gorilla, the animals seemed aware of how their playmate was interacting with the toy. "The gorillas could encourage their playmates when they were losing interest, or self-handicap if there was a danger of winning the game," says Byrne.

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Two baby primates orphaned in 2007 are safe now but grave challenges remain.

A baby gorilla claps her palms and leaps to the top of a wooden climbing frame. Another grips the hands of her keeper and swings head over heels with childlike exuberance. The pair play in long grass in the shade of bamboo, fig and wild banana trees.

This is Ndeze and Ndakasi, symbols of hope in the struggle to save the imperilled mountain gorillas of eastern Africa.

The pair, orphaned in massacres that shocked the world in 2007, are settling into a new home and could soon be part of a new family.

Negotiations are under way to bring two adult gorillas from Rwanda to become their adoptive parents, with a view to returning the babies to the wild.

Kristen Lukas, who chairs the Gorilla Species Survival Plan of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, has been involved in gorilla research since 1992. She also is curator of conservation and science at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

She answered questions concerning gorilla escapes from zoos.

Are gorillas more prone to escaping from confinement at the zoo than other animals?

Like the vegetarian who can't resist the occasional burger, the otherwise herbivorous gorilla might succumb to cravings for its evolutionary cousins, a new study hints.

While some zoo specimens are known to eat meat, wild gorillas eat only plants and fruit, along with the odd insect—as far as scientists know.

But a recent study found DNA from monkeys and small forest antelopes called duikers in the feces of wild African mountain gorillas in Loango National Park in Gabon.

The discovery raises the possibility that gorillas might have a secret meat habit—scavenging or hunting discretely.

A population of Sumatran orangutan has been found in Batan Toru forest in North Sumatra, but their number had not yet been determined.

The population, found in areas located in South Tapanuli, North Tapanuli and Central Tapanuli, is believed to be the first found this year. Last year, an orangutan population was found in Dairi regency.

Nasir Siregar, a resident of Sipirok in South Tapanuli, said he found four big orangutan nests in the forest.

"Based on their location, it's unlikely the nests are made by animals other than orangutans," he said.

It is no secret that orangutans are threatened with extinction because their rain forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Ten years ago, Shawn Thompson, a writer, former journalist and university professor, set out to chronicle the threat to orangutans in a book released in March 2010. The book is called The Intimate Ape: Orangutans and the Secret Life of a Vanishing Species. The book spends most of the time talking about the nature of orangutans and the relationships between orangutans and people. But the ultimate underlying message is there about the source of the peril to orangutans and the solution. Thompson says that the problem of saving orangutans has to do with communications and human nature.

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We shouldered our packs -- leaving behind us a small town of wooden shacks, and making our way up a steep climb into the Mbe mountains and Nigeria's last rainforest.

In this area there's no mobile phone network and only a few hours of electricity a month for the local community.

One of our guides waved towards the forest ahead of us: "We used to hear the gorillas roar from here in the town," reminisced Joseph Njama. "But not anymore."

We're searching for the world's rarest and most endangered gorilla -- the Cross River gorilla. In Nigeria and Cameroon there are thought to be only 300 left, and in these Mbe mountains maybe only 30 remain.

The challenge of saving the orangutan - man's closest relative - from extinction is trickling down to the weekly shop.

Many of the biscuits, margarines, breads, crisps and even bars of soap that consumers pick off supermarket shelves contain an ingredient that is feeding a growth industry that conservationists say is killing the orangutans.

The mystery ingredient in the mix is palm oil - the cheapest source of vegetable oil available - and one that rarely appears on the label of most products.

Palm oil is grown on land that was once home to the vast rainforests of Borneo, and the natural habitat of the orangutan.

Seemingly without a care in the world six-month-old lowland gorilla baby Yewande leans back with her arms behind her head.

They are expertly balanced on a strip of cloth suspended between two wooden struts in her enclosure forming almost a hammock behind her head.

Yewande - from Calgary Zoo, Canada - decided to take some time out after spending a good half and hour playing with her favourite pink blanket.

In another shot Yewande's huge silverback dad Kakinga dwarfs the youngster as he wanders over to check on his chilled-out offspring.

Yewande's exploits were caught on camera by zoo visitor Nancy Chow, 66, who was amazed by the pose struck by the baby primate.

Gorillas 'ape humans' over games

22-01-2010

Malignant malaria found in apes

18-01-2010 - BBC News

The parasite which causes malignant malaria in humans has been identified in gorillas for the first time.

Researchers analysed faeces from wild gorillas in Cameroon and blood samples from a captive animal from Gabon.

The study says increasing contact between humans and primates due to logging and deforestation raises the risk of transmission of new pathogens.

The research findings are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

New genetic sampling techniques allowed scientists from France, Cameroon, Gabon and the US to examine evidence of malaria parasites in the faecal matter of wild gorillas and chimpanzees in Cameroon.

"Sampling malaria parasites from apes in the wild has until now been very difficult", said Dr Francisco Ayala from the University of California, Irvine.

Orang utan conservationists are upset with World Growth, a US non-governmental organisation, for “dismissing” the threat posed to the ape population by oil palm plantations.

“Genetic studies in Sabah show that the orang utan population has declined by 50 to 90% over the past few decades,” said Sabah-based wildlife biologist Dr Marc Ancrenaz.

“This severe decline is due to several causes such as hunting and pet trade, but the foremost reason is forest loss when the forest is cut down and converted for agriculture,” said Dr Ancrenaz, who heads the French non-governmental organisation, Hutan, which works with Sabah Wildlife Department for orang utan conservation.

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A pioneering project to reintroduce traumatised gorillas to their natural habitat is bringing extraordinary success. Chris Green reports on how British conservationists are achieving what few thought was possible.

The two terrified baby gorillas, both female, were brought to the Lesio-Louna reserve in the Congo Basin shortly after witnessing the brutal slaughter of the rest of their family group at the hands of some poachers. They were so traumatised by what they had seen that they clung to each other in fear and bared their teeth at anything or anyone who ventured close.

At the time, few thought it possible that the two sisters, named Likendze and Matoko, would ever be successfully reintroduced into the wild. But seven years later they have been, and something even more extraordinary has happened: the two have given birth within three weeks of each other, producing the ninth and tenth babies born to "rewilded" gorillas.

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Rare Cross River gorilla filmed

16-12-2009 - BBC News

Rare footage has been taken of an elusive and critically endangered type of gorilla.

Film of the formerly camera-shy Cross River gorilla was captured in the forests of Cameroon by a team from Hamburg-based NDR Naturfilm.

The team says it is the first professionally shot film of the gorilla taken, and the animal has only once before been caught on camera. Fewer than 300 Cross River gorillas, a western gorilla subspecies, remain.

According to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which supported the expedition to film the ape, the only previous footage available of Cross River gorillas was taken by a field researcher using a shaky, hand-held camera and from a long distance in 2005.

The only two baby mountain gorillas in captivity -- orphaned two years ago after their mothers were slain in massacres -- will soon be getting a lush, new playpen, Congo's wildlife authority announced Friday.

Ndeze and Ndakasi will be romping in a special sanctuary, the Senkwekwe Center now under construction in Virunga National Park, where about 200 of the world's remaining 700 mountain gorillas live.

"This is paradise for them," said Samantha Newport, the park's communications director. "They will be able to play around, climb trees and eat forest food."

Gorilla dung could conceivably be the salvation of the planet.

A leading UK wildlife expert today said protecting the large primates he called the "gardeners of the forest" could provide the easy fix for global warming envisaged by international reforestation programmes.

America and other industrialised countries are looking to reforestation programmes in Africa, South-east Asia and South America to help contain the effects of climate change.

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A mountain gorilla in Parc Nacional des Volcans, Rwanda. Photograph: Andy Rouse/Corbis

An undercover investigation has found that up to two gorillas are killed and sold as bushmeat each week in Kouilou, a region of the Republic of Congo.

The apes' body parts are then taken downriver and passed on to traders who sell them in big-city markets.

Conducted by the conservation group Endangered Species International, the investigation helps expose the extent of gorilla poaching in the country. It fears hundreds more gorillas may be taken each year outside the region.

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Humans are more closely related to orangutans than chimps or gorillas, claims a controversial new theory that flies in the face of accepted science.

According to scientists Jeffrey Schwartz and John Grehan, humans and orangutans may have evolved from populations of an orang-like ancestor, rather than the chimpanzee, which is the mainstream scientific opinion.

Their work is published in the Journal of Biogeography.

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