Primatologist urges students to protect African wildlife
by Steven Katz, reporter

    Most people don’t realize it, but the Great Apes are in serious danger, a local ecologist said when she spoke to NE Campus students on the endangerment of apes worldwide.
    “Poachers and gamers are depleting their numbers in record time—only 450-500 mountain gorillas are alive today. Black market, illegal trading and the deforesting of their homes have allowed illegal pet trade and gaming in Africa to triple in the past five years, with no relief in sight,” Dr. Sherri Steward, Grapevine High School ecology teacher, said.
    In the 17 years she has taught at Grapevine High School, Steward has helped students raise money to build a chimpanzee sanctuary in Africa.
    As well, she has worked with some of the world’s greatest scientists, such as Jane Goodall, bought supplies for poor African schools, built flush toilets and a water well and traveled through both the African and South American Rainforests studying the behavior of the different apes.
    Through all of her work, she has experienced injustices against the animal kingdom, which is threatened daily by mankind.
    “Chimps on the black market are sold for meat,” she said. “Poachers come into protected habitats and cut off elephant tusks with axes and chainsaws. Armed guards, placed around the clock, are killed constantly while trying to ensure the safety of the black rhinos in Africa from the hunters.”
    Another injustice Steward spoke of dealt with gorillas.
    A pair of silver gorilla hands cost $5000. They make good ashtrays.
Steward once was sent six orangutans for her rehabilitative nursery; they were found on an airport tarmac in a box turned upside down with no visible air holes. They had lain there in 100-degree heat for four days. Only two survived.
    “The reason it is so important that the great apes, especially orangutans, are preserved is because the orangutan is human’s closest living relative, housing 96 percent of the same DNA. In fact, orangutan blood and human blood are indistinguishable under a microscope,” she said.
    As opposed to chimps, Orangutans aren’t social, Steward said.
    “Although they are one of the most extraordinary, intelligent and extremely sweet and passive animals in the world, they are very solitary and spend most of their time in the trees,” she said.
    During her time spent with orangutans, Steward spent most of her time on the ground, studying and rehabilitating ex-captive orangutans.
    “By feeding them plain white rice, primatologists forced them to forage for better tasting fruit, which in turn helped them adapt to the wild,” she said.
    Steward also worked with the legendary ape, Princess, who was taught sign language. That project was stopped, however, because scientists thought it interfered with the ape returning to the wild. But, amazingly enough, Princess taught her child sign language, and, in turn, the offspring taught others.
    It is small miracles like that that make Steward believe people are the last hope for the planet and the future.
    “People must put aside their differences to accomplish what is necessary; one doesn’t have to be partisan to be environmentally active, but one does have to prioritize and realize that saving the environment shouldn’t have budget restraints,” she said.
    There are things in the world one just can’t put a price tag on, Steward said.
   "There are things that are too precious, like cradling a baby orangutan in one’s arms, or the fact that no amount of money can bring back the mountain gorilla once he’s gone,” she said.
    People in Africa are suffering so much, yet despite all the misery and rampant dilapidation, there were always smiling children wherever Steward visited.
    “Don’t ever think you can’t make a difference,” she told her audience.