Learning from human medicine to care for endangered great apes

As Project and Database Manager for the Great Ape Heart Project, I’m often asked, why don’t you do x, y or z for great apes? And the answer is often – we haven’t had the time or money yet to test it out. The blood sample study we are fundraising for is pretty straight forward; we are trying to evaluate whether certain blood tests that are commonly used in human medicine will be effective in identifying early signs of heart disease in gorillas. If valid, these simple, inexpensive tests will be invaluable to zoos looking to monitor the health status of their gorillas.