Isangi, Lulingu, Mapendo and Ndjingala: these are the names of four Grauer’s gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri) that conservationists reintroduced to the wild in October 2024. After years in a sanctuary,…
On the evening of May 9, 2019, conservationist and teacher Itakwu Innocent narrowly survived an assassination attempt outside his home in Kubong-Bette, a small farming village in the southeastern Nigerian…
Nearly two-thirds of all primates are in danger of disappearing, including 100 that have only been described by science in the last 25 years. To spotlight their plight, leading conservation…
At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss the ecological significance of Mbalmayo Forest Reserve in southern Cameroon, one of several degraded forest patches scattered across the country. Located on the…
The intensifying security crisis in parts of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over the years is undermining wildlife protection in Virunga National Park, say officials and local residents.…
Human activities such as mining, agriculture, urbanization, damming and logging threaten the habitats of great apes in Africa and Asia. Apes have shown resilience to these disruptions by adapting their…
The resurgence of the M23 (March 23 movement) rebel group has once again drawn global attention to the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The humanitarian crisis—millions displaced, thousands…
On a night in 1997, Benjamin Dauda killed a gorilla for the first time. Shrouding his lanky frame in dark fog, he stalked a foraging troop, finally dispatching his bullet…
A new study has concluded that the decline in Grauer’s gorillas in a sector of their main stronghold in the Democratic Republic of Congo was the result of the impacts…
Spanning nearly a tenth of the vast Congo Basin’s rainforest, the transboundary Dja-Odzala-Minkébé (TRIDOM) landscape is a nearly unbroken green canopy, stretching across Cameroon, the Republic of Congo and Gabon.…
With recent conservation efforts and the involvement of Indigenous peoples and local communities in managing protected areas, forest elephant populations are on the verge of stabilizing,in at least one national…
For the Indigenous Vungu people living along the border of Gabon’s Moukalaba-Doudou National Park, the forest here has long been a source of traditional medicines. So when researchers set out…
Tourists from around the world pay top dollar for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hobnob with gorilla families in Uganda’s montane forests. Part of the rationale for the steep prices is…
Where southeastern Nigeria abuts western Cameroon, dense rainforest still shelters iconic, threatened megafauna like critically endangered African forest elephants (Lloxodonta cyclotis) and Cross River gorillas (Gorilla gorilla diehli), as well…
Newly captured images from camera traps in the Tayna Nature Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have recorded two mother-infant pairs of critically endangered eastern lowland gorillas. These…
Mountain gorillas are currently the only nonhuman great ape whose population is not declining. Thanks to successful conservation interventions, the species' population has increased from 620 in 1989 to more…
Gorillas and chimpanzees living in a remote part of the Congo Basin hang out together and some, like humans, even establish “relationships with benefits,” a new study reveals. Observations of…
BANGKOK — A run-down department store tucked among Bangkok’s skyscrapers is home to the rooftop Pata Zoo, where nearly 300 animals pace in cages littered with feces, food scraps and…
Gunshots, grassland and a tiny population of critically endangered gorillas coexisting with nearby human populations in southwestern Cameroon: a new study analyzes a complex set of factors to help understand…
Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is a sanctuary for half of the world’s remaining population of endangered mountain gorillas, alongside forest elephants and many other species. But two road projects…
Early February 1989. A blue helicopter, partly tinted in green and white, emerged from the clouds of Kanyang, in Nigeria's Cross River state. Gabriel Osanja, then 22, stood among the…
Stricter measures implemented to protect endangered mountain gorillas from COVID-19 should be made permanent long after the pandemic has passed, conservationists say, citing a significant drop in respiratory infections among…
A series of raids by soldiers and rangers in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park have left one Indigenous man dead and a pregnant woman missing, feared burned…
KAMPALA, Uganda — Tour guide Patrick Kataama relied heavily on income from leading gorilla-trekking tours in Uganda's national parks. These tours were abruptly shut down in late March 2020, after…
Years before the obsession with wild-borne pathogens latching onto humans gripped the world, Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka was already dealing with disease spillovers. Except, she worried about humans infecting gorillas in her…
MBE MOUNTAINS, Nigeria — Three hop-like steps and a leap, and suddenly Jacob Osang, an eco-guard with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), appears to be levitating above the rainforest floor.…
BAMBA, Nigeria — It’s sunset in Bamba, a small farming community in Cross River state in southeast Nigeria. Louis Nkonyu, 46, caresses the touchpad of his laptop in search of…
IKOM, Nigeria — When 57-year-old Linus Otu was a child, each dawn arrived with the chatter of monkeys and occasional belches of gorillas from the mountain that overlooks his small…
CROSS RIVER STATE, Nigeria — Sampson Akoba's long career as a ranger has left him with a wealth of assorted memories: hunters’ revolts, the death of his nephew in a…
Editor's Note: The journal article discussed in this report, "Exploring the potential effect of COVID-19 on an endangered great ape," was formally retracted by its authors Jan. 25, 2022. According…
At the age of 13, Marie Jeanne Bora Ntianabo already knew she wanted to be a park ranger. Today, she’s one of 250 rangers protecting Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the…
As a clear morning dawned on May 18, 2021, a baby was born. She was a gorilla, born to the Mapuwa family, one of 10 gorilla families in Virunga National…
