Deep in Gabon’s dense Moukalaba-Doudou National Park, western lowland gorillas engage in an ancient practice that might unlock modern medical secrets. These majestic apes don’t just survive off the lush forests—they actively self-medicate. In a recent study, researchers explored the medicinal plants that gorillas consume and their potential implications for humans. What they discovered could…
Conservation charity, the African Conservation Foundation, launches a brand new NFT Project on Earth Day to raise $1.2 Million to save the world’s rarest great ape. The collection includes a one-million-dollar NFT and also offers 5 free expeditions in Africa for the lucky winners. On Earth Day, the charity ‘African Conservation Foundation’ is proud to…
The COVID-19 pandemic, affecting all countries, with millions of cases and deaths, and economic disruptions due to lockdowns, also threatens the health and conservation of endangered mountain gorillas. For example, increased poaching due to absence of tourism income, led to the killing on 1st June 2020 of a gorilla by a hungry community member hunting…
Rainforest Rescue released a petition protesting the Cameroonian government’s move to open 150,000 hectares of Ebo Forest – an area the size of Greater London – to logging. The logging concessions would impact one of Africa’s great biodiversity hotspots. Ebo Forest is the habitat of a possible new subspecies of gorilla, as well as a…
Gorillas have more complex social structures than previously thought, from lifetime bonds forged between distant relations, to “social tiers” with striking parallels to traditional human societies, according to a new study. The findings suggest that the origins of our own social systems stretch back to the common ancestor of humans and gorillas, rather than arising…
Paternal care – where fathers care for their children – is rare among mammals (that is, animals which give birth to live young). Scientists have identified more than 6,000 mammal species, but paternal care only occurs in 5 to 10% of them. Humans fall into that category, along with species like mice and lions. There…
More than 70% of Africa’s national parks have been affected by war in recent decades, and wildlife has suffered as a result. That’s according to a new study by researchers from Yale and Princeton universities, which looked at data on 253 populations of large herbivores from 126 protected areas in 19 countries across the continent….