eBook

Eating apes

Peterson, Dale

2003

Overview

Eating Apesis an eloquent book about a disturbing secret: the looming extinction of humanity's closest relatives, the African great apes-chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas. Dale Peterson's impassioned exposé 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.

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Subject: Africa, Central / Ape meat industry / Ape meat industry -- Africa, Central / Apes / Apes -- Africa, Central / Wildlife conservation / Wildlife conservation -- Africa, Central / Zoology
• ISBN: 9780520230903, 0520230906, 0520243323, 9780520243323