U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Great Ape Conservation Fund

International Affairs

Division of International Conservation

4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Room 730

Arlington, VA 22203

703/358-1754

703/358-2849 fax

internationalconservation@fws.gov

http://international.fws.gov

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

www.fws.gov

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance

Number 15.629

February 2004

Mountain gorilla

USFWS/Richard Ruggiero

Throughout West and Central Africa,

gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos are

being hunted for food. In Southeast Asia,

orangutans and gibbons are suffering the

same fate. Roads built for logging and

mining operations have allowed poachers

easy access to previously remote and

densely forested ape habitat, which once

served as a protective shield against

human threat.

The meat of wild animals is commonly

known as “bushmeat.” Bushmeat is a

cheap and plentiful supply of protein in

remote villages where meat from

domesticated animals is scarce and

expensive. In the city, eating bushmeat

has become a status symbol for the

wealthy and demand for the taste of wild

meat has steadily increased. In many

regions, ape meat is the preferred

bushmeat and brings the highest price.

As a result, the bushmeat trade has

become the number one threat to the

survival of apes, pushing many

populations to the brink of extinction.

Loss of natural habitat and an illegal pet

industry also pose serious threats.

In addition to devastating the world’s ape

populations, the bushmeat trade poses a

tremendous health risk for humans. In

Africa, the consumption of bushmeat has

been linked to people contracting lethal

viruses like Ebola and HIV/AIDS.

Government officials face a daunting

challenge in their efforts to inform the

public of health risks associated with

bushmeat, and to enforce laws that

prohibit poaching.

Apes, by their biological nature, are an

extremely vulnerable species. They have

complex social relationships, grow

relatively slowly and have low

reproductive rates. Even at a minimal

level, illegal hunting is very damaging to

ape populations. In 1960, more than one

million chimpanzees populated the dense

forests of Africa. Today, fewer than

200,000 survive in the wild and their

numbers continue to fall. Experts

caution that the loss of ape populations

will lead to a loss of critical medical

knowledge, which can be obtained

through simple, noninvasive research on

wild populations.

On behalf of the American people, the

U.S. Congress passed a law in 2000 that

created the Great Ape Conservation

Fund for conservation of gorillas,

chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and

gibbons. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service awards grants from the fund for

research related to infectious diseases,

strengthening law enforcement, public

conservation education, safeguarding

habitat and much more.
• Testing an important aspect of the

Ebola outbreak in Gabon and Congo

involving gorilla-to-gorilla spread of

the disease;

• Implementation of an ape health

monitoring program in Gabon to

include training for local scientists on

monitoring and protection of gorillas,

and a public awareness campaign;

• Collaboration between Rwanda,

Uganda and the Democratic Republic

of Congo to establish a monitoring and

research program to protect the

remaining 600 mountain gorillas living

in the wild along the Albertine Rift;

• Protecting chimpanzee habitat from

logging operations and establishing

anti-poaching units in northern

Republic of Congo;

• Modernizing a primate research and

teaching facility for university

students and park rangers in

Tanzania;

• An action plan for conservation of the

Hainan gibbon in China;

• Coordination of detailed gibbon

population surveys and threat

assessments with Cambodia’s

Department of Forest and Wildlife

and Department of Nature

Conservation to develop a

comprehensive gibbon conservation

plan;

• A collaborative workshop to develop a

“Regional Action Plan for the

Conservation of Chimpanzees in West

Africa;”

• Public awareness and children’s

educational programs on conservation

of chimpanzees and their habitats in

Guinea, Mali, Liberia and Ivory Coast;

• Training and equipping anti-poaching

units for the conservation of

chimpanzees in Sierra Leone;

• Creation of safe corridors between

important seasonal feeding areas for

chimpanzees in West Africa;

• Introduction of “biogas” as an

alternative fuel to firewood in Vietnam

in order to prevent the further

degradation of gibbon habitat due to

firewood extraction by villagers;

• Expanding anti-poaching patrol

activities and conservation awareness

campaigns in areas surrounding

Indonesia’s Gunung Palung National

Park, which is prime habitat for the

2,500 orangutans living there;

• Awareness camps for people living on

the fringes of an important hoolock

gibbon habitat, the Gibbon Wildlife

Sanctuary, in India’s northeastern

state of Assam;

• A conservation education program for

indigenous people that hunt and eat

orangutans in areas north and

northwest of Lamandau Reserve in

Indonesia; and

• Development of a Wildlife Warden

Program to assist Malaysia’s Sabah

Wildlife Department in their

management of the Kinabatangan

Wildlife Sanctuary, an important

orangutan habitat.

The 2003 appropriation of $1.2 million dollars funded 30 projects such as:

Total Number of Grant Proposals Received 163

Total Number of Grants Awarded 75

Percentage of Countries with Great Apes that Receive Grants 72%

Total Amount Appropriated by U.S. Congress $2,940,000

Total Funds Distributed through Grants $2,700,000

Total Funds to Administration of Grants $240,000

Total Matching/In-kind Funds Leveraged by Grants $4,275,032

Great Ape Conservation Fund from First Appropriation in 2001 through FY 2003

Lowland gorilla

USFWS/Richard Ruggiero

Chimpanzee

USFWS/Richard Ruggiero

Orangutan

 Roland Seitre