John E Cooper is a member of a husband and wife team, from the United Kingdom. He and his wife Margaret (a lawyer, who is a contributor to this book and the forthcoming natural history book about Maxwell Knight) travel widely and lecture together in many countries. They have spent nearly twenty years living overseas, mainly in Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean. They worked with mountain gorillas in Rwanda from 1993-95 and continue to study the diseases of these and other primates. The Coopers are now based in Britain, where they have visiting academic commitments, but they continue their voluntary work with wildlife, domesticated animals angorilla-pathology-and-health-1st-editiond rural communities in East Africa.

Gordon Hull is an amateur naturalist with a keen interest in primates. He has specialised in the study of gorillas over many years, during which time he has amassed a great deal of technical and historical information about specimens in zoos, museums, and other institutions throughout the world.  Although unaffiliated, he has been, and remains, an assiduous and effective researcher, able to elicit excellent responses and co-operation from professional scientists and lay persons alike.  Gordon is a member of the Gorilla Pathology Study Group (GPSG) and was a co-author with John E Cooper and Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka of the paper “Diseases and Pathology of the Genus Gorilla: The Need for a Database of Material and Resources”, presented in Nairobi, Kenya, in September 2013, that set the scene for this publication.

This work is to be published in late 2016 by Academic Press Elsevier- see ISBN: 9780128020395 Gorilla Pathology and Health. A combination of book and catalogue that contains extensive information on the pathology, health, welfare, and conservation of gorillas. It:

  • Brings together studies, data, and clinical practice from difficult-to-access or obscure journals and NGO reports, in different languages, for all interested parties and practitioners.
  • Provides perspectives on existing research in gorilla pathology and health, both for those studying conservation and welfare practices and those seeking a greater understanding of comparable diseases in humans
  • Includes illustrative figures of gross and microscopic pathological changes, museum specimens, photos of field necropsy and techniques, and examples of laboratory tests
  • Features an extensive list of references and further reading, in different languages
  • Incorporates a comprehensive, descriptive catalogue of gorilla material from around the world.

With a Foreword by Louise Leakey and Emmanuel de Merode and contributions by Margaret E. Cooper, Ian Redmond, Paul Budgen, Martyn Cooke, Allen Goodship, Jane Hopper, Jenny Jaffe, Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Sophia Keen, Brian N. Livingstone, Keith Maybury, Dermot McInerney, Roberto P. Miguez, Jaimie Morris, Ogeto Mwebi, Geoffrey Pearson, Carina Phillips, Celsus Sente, Paolo Viscardi and others.

Did you know that Maxwell Knight wrote a (tongue in cheek) book about keeping a gorilla?