Eating Apes

"A beautifully written book about an ongoing tragedy of global significance. Dale Peterson's account sweeps across broad issues of conservation and animal welfare that are linked to human welfare and should be the concern of everyone everywhere."--Edward O. Wilson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning On Human Nature

"I applaud Dale Peterson for taking on this challenging subject with courage and honesty. In identifying development, in the form of logging, as the primary threat to biodiversity in Africa, this book gets it right, and I recommend it most highly to anyone who wishes to be let in on the secrets of Africa's biggest conservation crisis."--Marcellin Agnagna, former Director of Wildlife and National Parks for the Republic of Congo

"The African Great Apes, our closest living relatives, are in imminent danger of extinction. Eating Apes, in beautiful prose, exposes the enormity and complexity of this conservation crisis. It took great courage to gather and present this information. You must read this book."--Jane Goodall

"It is with joy that I welcome this beautifully written and persuasive book that I pray should be read not only in America and Europe but also in Africa. We are facing an environmental crisis because of those few political and corporate opportunists who take advantage of weak political institutions lacking legitimacy for the indigenous peoples of Central and West Africa."--Ajume H. Wingo, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Boston, and Research Fellow of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute, Harvard University

"What is happening to our nearest relatives, the African great apes, in their last remaining strongholds, is appalling, yet most of us know nothing about it. We should all thank Dale Peterson and Karl Ammann for this powerful book, which should end that ignorance. Everyone should read it, and then insist that their governments act before it is too late."--Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation and Ethics

"In Eating Apes, Dale Peterson becomes the Hercule Poirot of the tropics. When he heard that in the equatorial forests apes have become meat for loggers, Peterson set off to part the curtain on a world of jungle tragedy where cultures collide, where innocence is eroded by money and power, and where conservation all too often collapses into politics. What he found is shocking, but his detective work means that ignorance is no longer an excuse for the world's inaction. Will the apes survive? Eating Apes is a brilliant, intimate guide to the challenge--and a launching-pad for the rescue mission."--Richard Wrangham, author of Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence

"Peterson and Amman's book is a bold and brave j'accuse of the logging and conservation organizations who are spearheading this latest attack. You must read this book. And then you must follow the advice of Peterson and Amman as to what you can do to help stop it."--Roger Fouts, author of Next of Kin

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