Karl Ammann

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Karl Ammann (born in 1948 in St. Gallen, Switzerland) is a conservationist and wildlife photographer who has spent most of his career in the Congo basin.

Ammann started his career in Africa as a photographer in the early 1980's, photographing cheetahs, but later turned to work on great apes. In 1988, he became witness to the bushmeat trade, and has since worked hard to bring the trade and it's effect (particularly on great apes) to the attention of the conservation community and the world. Using his photography skills, he has taken pictures of the victims of the bushmeat trade that to many where chocking and revolting, and he has been accused of exaggerating the problems. With the publishing of the books Eating Ape (with Dale Peterson) and Consuming Nature, the problem has come to the attention of the world.

In his years working in Congo, Ammann has also produced images of a hereto unknown Ape of large proportions. The animal, not yet fully investigated is called the Bili Ape, and is apparently a divergent form of chimpanzee, about the size of gorillas.

Karl Ammann appeared on Time Magazine's list of "Heroes of the Environment" October 2007.^[1]