Save Great Apes, Tigers, Elephants and More!

Please urge Congress to increase conservation funding for great apes, tigers, rhinos, elephants and neotropical migratory birds. Congress has established the Multinational Species Conservation Fund to help protect these keystone species from further decline.

Habitat destruction and overexploitation have pushed populations of the world's great apes-gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans-to alarmingly low levels. Illegal hunting of great apes for the bush meat trade is taking a major toll on some populations.

For decades, WCS has been a leader in the conservation of great apes. WCS began studying gorillas in 1959 with pioneering work by biologist George Schaller and is the only organization in the world working to protect all three gorilla subspecies: mountain gorillas, Grauer's gorillas, and western lowland gorillas. WCS is also working tirelessly on solutions to control the taking of bushmeat, using a combination of hard science, and the involvement of local communities, national governments, and even logging companies.

WCS is the only organization in the world focused on the plight of the Sumatran orangutan. WCS has trained Indonesian scientists, discovered new populations of orangutans in Sumatra and worked with local people to ensure orangutan survival.

Tiger, rhino and elephant populations continue to be poached for body parts and their habitat is under extreme pressure from burgeoning human populations in Asia and Africa. Rhinos in Java and Sumatra and in parts of Africa have declined to barely sustainable levels. Tigers continue to decline throughout their range, although some local successes have been achieved through persistent conservation efforts.

WCS has proudly worked to protect tigers throughout their range, beginning with field surveys in India by Dr. George Schaller in the 1960s. Reduced from 95 percent of their former abundance in a little over a century, the world's biggest cat is critically endangered today. However, WCS scientists are optimistic that tigers can in fact be saved using a combination of hard science and education.

WCS has worked on the conservation of various rhinos over the years including the Sumatran rhino, White Rhino and Black Rhino.

WCS has long supported projects directly concerning elephant conservation in central and east Africa, and south east Asia. Elephants are a "keystone" species. They act as architects of the forest and savanna, by opening areas for other wildlife to be able to feed, by being seed dispersors, and as mineral salt miners.

Ninety species of neotropical migratory birds (those that breed in North America and winter in Latin America or the Caribbean) are listed as endangered or threatened in the United States. WCS works to conserve several neotropical migratory birds including the red knot, which makes one of the truly staggering migrations - going from the Patagonian coast to the Arctic Circle.

Your support would be immensely helpful to the conservation of these highly threatened species. Take action now!