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Among the Great Apes: Adventures on the Trail of Our Closest Relatives

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Author Paul Raffaele braved leeches, bandits, guerillas, cliffs, blisters, rain, and the residual affects of shrapnel received in a Afghanistan war zone to put this book together. But it is a magnificent book, a sobering book, and a terrifying book, all at the same time.

Those gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutans are four of the five Great Apes, and all five have their difficulties living on Planet Earth. Oh, the fifth? Those are Homo sapiens... us. We may be close to numbering seven billion, but the cruelty and barbarity that we see human apes treating one another in Africa and elsewhere clearly is indicative of how we treat our close cousins. Raffaele continually reflects on this: "A government that refuses to protect its own children and women from widespread sexual slavery, and refuses to prosecute those who trade in sexual slavery, is hardly likely to give a moment's thought to the fate of its great apes" (p. 260).

Poaching, bushmeat hunting, illegal and "legal" logging, agricultural conversion of forests to palm oil plantations, and tourism all affect the population levels of the Great Apes, and all are in decline. Might we lose mountain gorillas in the next 50 years, along with Atlantic bluefin tuna, Pacific leatherback turtles, and Florida panthers?

Raffaele is an explorer, and he works hard to visit populations of these apes on their terms. He relates the history, biogeography, biology, and behavior of these apes, and writes of his experiences in their own natural habitats. It is striking how accepting and peaceful these apes are around humans. It is really rare for a person to actually be harmed. Obviously, the reverse is not true. Western hunters and collectors took their pound of flesh for two hundred years, and governments and politicians continue to find ways to make the Great Apes pay for their very existence. NGOs bring currency into countries to establish research and conservation centers, and many people in Western countries seem willing to donate, especially for organizations that care for orphaned babies and young apes.

"Ecotourism," or nature-based tourism, involving mountain gorillas or other apes can be quite lucrative, and families of apes are habituated to allow humans to get close. Of course, a habituated ape really can't tell the difference between a tourist and a killer. "While habituation of the mountain gorillas on the other side of the Virunga volcanoes in Rwanda through gorilla tourism has saved them, it is a different story in the Congo. Habituation allowed the killers to approach Rugendo and his [gorilla] family without prompting them to flee, as mountain gorillas unused to human presence would have done. The bodies were not stripped of flesh, but left untouched or burned where they had been murdered. Clearly, the killers were not poachers. As I look at the tragic pictures of the bodies of Rugendo and his four females, I cannot help wondering whether they might still be alive if we had just left them alone" (p. 60).

Although this is a book about apes, this is also a book about Raffaele's travels. The people he meets and the places he visits are all part of this story. And his tongue is sharp when necessary:

"Our conversation turns to zoos and their place in modern times. After visiting zoos all over the world, I believe they are an anachronism, places where captured or zoo-bred animals are kept in cruel confinement for the daily hordes of visitors. I believe that even the best zoos treat their captives in a dreadful way. ...I suggest to Peter that confining great apes in tiny compounds is like keeping a human in a room the size of a bathroom for the remaining days of his life, with hundreds of strange creatures filing by the glass walls each day to peer at him" (p. 335-336).

Peter, a Houston Zoo employee, replies, "'That's the wrong approach. We call them ambassador animals. They are the ambassadors presenting the wild animals to zee visitors.' Raffaele replies, 'Ambassador? There's not a hint in that word of the cruelty you inflict on zoo animals'" (p. 335-336).

You will learn a lot from this book. You'll "meet" people passionate about saving the Great Apes. You'll learn about people that have no problem eating a gorilla. You'll decide for yourself whether bonobos can "speak" using sign language or computer-assisted technologies. Raffaele will have you assessing the creativity, the intelligence, and the "bestiality" of gorillas, chimps, bonobos, and orangutans. And you'll apply those measures to the human race as well.

Excellent, excellent book.

I have read many books about the great apes, and this is definitely one of my favorites. There is a lot of information on each species, but also paints a picture (often a terrifying one) of the type of environment these beautiful creatures live in. Humans have the power to destroy or save the great apes. It's hard to blame the poachers completely when you understand that they only kill apes because it's a way to feed their families. This book really gives people an idea of the complete instability of each ape's environment and what must be done in order to save them. If you want to know the whole story, this is the book for you. I greatly admire the courage of the author to venture into so many dangerous locations to gather all of this information for us.

I found this a very satisfying blend of travelogue and great-ape primatology. Besides the apes we learn a good deal about the local peoples (as well as the larger African socio-political context though the text is never burdened by such) and the scientific personalities that have spent so much time studying these Ape-people. The author does an excellent job of bringing us up to speed on the state of primatology--what we know and don't know-- as well as unpacking the various controversies and existential threats to the apes.

I was surprised that he doesn't paint as rosy a picture of the bonobo as some others have. It could be that when you get clobbered by one it's hard to think of them as completely tender loving. But certainly there is no whiff of an agenda from the author and he doesn't hesitate to communicate some unpleasant realities of local tribal practices.

There are some great on the scene stories and many interesting characters along the way. And I liked how the author kept a compare-contrast narrative going about the differences among the apes. Even so if you just want a book focusing on the science and behavior of the apes themselves there might be better books--else you'll sometimes find yourself doing a lot of skimming to get to the ape bits. But if you are interested in the whole 'being there' experience sprinkled with little stories and anecdotes about the local culture and the scientists, conservationists, and others who have spent much of their lives in the jungle then I doubt you could ask for a better book, or companion-host.

This book is fantastic. It has been years (ok, decades) since I've written in the margins of my books, but I simply had to keep my pencil handy as I read "Among the Great Apes." I've read many books about the great apes, but none have given me the tidbits that appear here, every few pages or so. I felt like I was along on Raffaele's travels of discovery.

Why does gorilla chest pounding resonate so much? (See page 25.) How do orangutans, chimps, and gorillas differ in their use of tools? (Neat comparison on page 134.) How many orangutans "rehabilitated" in rainforest sanctuaries live once they are released to the wild? (A French veterinarian working in Sumatra gives an amazing estimate on page 329.) I could go on and on...

This is a valuable resource, with one man discovering what others have found in their years of working with all of the great apes. I am so glad I discovered it.

Among the Great Apes: Adventures on the Trail of Our Closest Relatives tells of the author's visit to all species and sub-species of the great apes left in the wild, traveling throughout Africa to Germany and the U.S. and facing danger from apes and humans alike. Science and nature observation blend in a dramatic survey perfect for any general lending library strong in wildlife encounters.