Eating Apes [Paperback]

Eating Apesis an eloquent book about a disturbing secret: the looming extinction of humanity's closest relatives, the African great apeschimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas. Dale Peterson's impassioned expos? details how, with the unprecedented opening of African forests by European and Asian logging companies, the traditional consumption of wild animal meat in Central Africa has suddenly exploded in scope and impact, moving from what was recently a subsistence activity to an enormous and completely unsustainable commercial enterprise. Although the three African great apes account for only about one percent of the commercial bush meat trade, today's rate of slaughter could bring about their extinction in the next few decades. Supported by compelling color photographs by award-winning photographer Karl Ammann,Eating Apesdocuments the when, where, how, and why of this rapidly accelerating disaster.

Eating Apespersuasively argues that the American conservation media have failed to report the ongoing collapse of the ape population. In bringing the facts of this crisis and these impending extinctions into a single, accessible book, Peterson takes us one step closer to averting one of the most disturbing threats to our closest relatives.

Dale Petersonis the author ofStoryville, USA(1999),Chimpanzee Travels: On and Off the Road in Africa(1995), andThe Deluge and the Ark: A Journey into Primate Worlds(1989). He is the editor ofBeyond Innocence: Jane Goodall's Later Life in Letters(2001) andAfrica in My Blood: Jane Goodall's Early Life in Letters(2000). He is the coauthor ofDemonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence(1996) andVisions of Caliban: On Chimpanzees and People(1993).Karl Ammannis an award-winning photographer who has photographed wildlife throughout Africa and Southeast Asia.

A beautifully written book about an ongoing tragedy of globall“.