Among Chimpanzees: Field Notes from the Race to Save Our Endangered Relatives - Hardcover

Nancy Merrick

4.24

41 ratings by Goodreads

9780807084908: Among Chimpanzees: Field Notes from the Race to Save Our Endangered Relatives

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807084905 ISBN 13: 9780807084908

Publisher: Beacon Press (MA), 2014

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A former student and colleague of Jane Goodall shares stories of chimps and their heroes, and takes readers on a journey to save man’s closest relative.

Unbeknownst to much of the public, there is a looming crisis for Great Apes: chimps are extinct in four African countries and nearly so in twelve others. A large percentage of the remaining populations live in unprotected, increasingly fragmented African forests that are under siege. Veteran chimp researcher Nancy Merrick takes us from the early days of primate research, when wild chimpanzees were abundant and the world was spellbound by emerging details of their behavior, to today’s critical conservation efforts. Along the way, Merrick demonstrates that the best hope for chimps and other Great Apes lies in connecting conservation to humanitarian efforts, ensuring a healthy future for animals and humans alike. Featuring fresh stories of the remarkable chimps and the inspirational work of today’s leading conservationists, Among Chimpanzees will stir readers to care about the fate of our chimps—and to get involved in chimp conservation.

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Review:

"[A] sobering and cleareyed new book ... part memoir, part travelogue and part clarion call to action."
--New York Times Science Times

"The plight of wild chimpanzees is getting worse by the day, but no one seems to notice. If our closest relatives were to disappear, we'd be losing one of our most valuable connections to nature. Nancy Merrick brings home this message in an engaging first-hand account of the situation on the ground. The book is a must-read for anyone concerned, and comes with proposals that seek to harmonize conservation with human development."
--Frans de Waal, author of The Bonobo and the Atheist

"This is a fascinating book that presents many delightful and insightful tales about chimpanzees, with all their remarkable individuality, cleverness, intelligence, creativity--their bright flame of consciousness--on display. It is also a passionate book that explains why we are in danger of losing them forever. You will love this book, I know. You will also, I hope, be haunted by it--and perhaps inspired as well, as you learn what people are doing to reverse the trend and save our closest living relatives from extinction."
--Dale Peterson, author of Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man

"Among Chimpanzees is an important book, documenting the dedicated struggle to ensure our great ape cousins survive in the forests and woodlands of Africa. The author paints a vivid picture of the contrasts between the Africa she encountered when she joined Jane Goodall's multi-national research team back in 1972, and today's very different Africa and its growing human population whose needs are central to both the threats and solutions of conservation and sustainable living in the 21st Century."
--Ian Redmond, Chairman of the Ape Alliance and author of The Primate Family Tree

"Our close relatives, chimpanzees, are the poster animals for the destruction of other beings and their homes. Dr. Nancy Merrick's outstanding and inspirational book shows clearly why we must all work together to save endangered and imperiled species so that future generations will inherit a planet that's worth caring about. Those who work on behalf of other species are not 'the radicals' who should be silenced, but rather the compassionate people to whom we all must carefully listen and follow. Read and share this most important book."
--Marc Bekoff, author of Rewilding Our Hearts

"In Nancy Merrick's inspiring memoir the future of the apes is too precarious to leave to the professionals. Her story of how she became a lifelong activist for chimpanzee conservation is heart-rending, uplifting and ultimately important because it gives powerful evidence of her core conviction: one person really can make a difference."
--Richard Wrangham, co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, Professor of Biological Anthropology, Harvard University

About the Author:

Nancy J. Merrick is an accomplished physician-internist and a reviewer for the Annals of Internal Medicine. She is the creator of ChimpSaver.org, a website teaching users why chimpanzees are remarkable and enabling them to advocate on behalf of chimps and other Great Apes. She is rapidly becoming a recognized leader in the battle to save great apes. She lives in Ventura, California.

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