Eating Apes

Eating Apes is 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 colour photographs by award-winning photographer Karl Ammann, Eating Apes documents the when, where, how, and why of this rapidly accelerating disaster.