The great ape program

The dense tropical rainforests of Liberia are a haven for the closest of human relatives, the chimpanzee. But as the nation recovers from years of civil war, the chimp's habitat is emptying fast. Experts say most chimps in the wild will be extinct in the next few decades due to a thriving trade in bushmeat. I recently visited Liberia to join primatologist Hjalmar Kjell from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. He and his colleagues set up the Pan-Africa Great Ape Program in Liberia, which is the first of 15 nations to host a systematic survey of their chimpanzee populations. With such a grave forecast for the chimpanzee, this project aims to gain as much information about them as possible before they disappear. The Liberian landscape can be treacherous. Local teams often have to struggle through uncut bush, across raging rivers, and over roads which become mud traps in the rainy season. In Sapo National Park, Liberia's only protected reserve, volunteer Vera Leinert has set up video cameras to observe the chimps in their natural environment. These cameras are triggered by infrared motion sensors as chimps pass by. Though Vera's been in Sapo for a year now, she's yet to see a single chimp face-to-face. On the plus side, capturing footage of these playful creatures has enabled her to really get to know the chimp community. This kind of data is proving invaluable for studying chimps' health in the wild, and is shedding light on concepts such as animal culture. Reporting for Nature Video, I'm Gayathri Vaidyanathan.