Rick Quinn - Just Like Us: A Veterinarian’s Visual Memoir of Our Vanishing Great Ape Relatives

Chimpanzee, Kibale National Park, Uganda. Chimpanzees have a low forehead with a very prominent brow ridge and eyes that are deep set and relatively close together. As the author quietly photographed this young male, he got the impression that he was deep in thought.

A cross the once vast forests of Africa and Asia, great ape populations are in rapid decline. Chimpanzees and bonobos are designated as endangeredthe Western chimpanzee is critically endangered, as are both orangutans and gorillas. The causes for their decline are numerous and nearly all are linked to human activity. By raising awareness about these magnificent animals, our closest living relatives, and illustrating how seemingly disparate issues are interconnected, Rick Quinn wants to mobilize ordinary citizensacting as consumers, voters, and investorsto help save these vanishing and iconic species.

On every page, Ricks sensitive observations simultaneously move the heart and feed the mind. His powerful images complement his thorough researchresearch that has clearly been undertaken by someone with a passion for understanding and protecting great apes, the people who live close to them, and the extraordinary landscapes humans and great apes share.

I first met Rick when I spoke at Western University, where he had organized an evening event as part of my Canadian lecture tour. Since that initial meeting, our paths have crossed on several occasions and I have come to know him and his family as close friends, as well as friends of so many other animals. Rick is a veterinarian and educator and he has gradually expanded his interests in the world of wildlife conservation and advocacy. He has photographed each of the great ape species in their natural forest settings in Asia and Africa and many of the images are included in this book. Also, Rick has been very generous in donating many of these high-impact photographs to support the work of the Jane Goodall Institute.

In Just Like Us, Rick shows how great apes are affected by human political strife and economic hardship. The dominant threats to their survival are illegal hunting for bushmeat sold in local markets and exported to expat communities abroad; the shooting of mothers to steal their infants for the live animal trade; and illegal logging and surface mineral extraction that destroy great ape habitat. Moreover, human populations are growing and people are penetrating ever further into the apes forest homes, carrying with them diseases to which the apes may be susceptible, as they are biologically so close to us. These threats are compounded by the reproductive cycles of all great apesa female chimpanzee in the wild, for example, usually does not have her first infant until she is eleven or twelve years old, and then there is a birth interval of an average of five years.