Vanessa Woods

Vanessa "published her first article about Baluku, a chimp who used to pee on her bed. Since then, Vanessa has become an internationally published author and journalist and is the main Australian/ New Zealand feature writer for the Discovery Channel. She graduated with a Masters of Science Communication from the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at the Australian National University and has written for various publications including BBC Wildlife, New Scientist, and Travel Africa. In 2003, Vanessa won the Australasian Science award for journalism. In 2007, her children’s book on space was named an Acclaimed Book by the UK Royal Society and shortlisted for the Royal Society’s Junior Science Book Prize.

"For Vanessa, science and writing are closely linked. After a year studying the behavioral ecology of monkeys in Central America, it occurred to her that very few people outside the scientific community knew what it was like to chase monkeys for 14 hours a day, live in a compression chamber with eight other people for a year, or watch as you and the people around you morph into monkeys. It’s every monkey for themselves is a true story about what life is really like in the jungle.

"Vanessa and a bonoboVanessa is also the author of three children’s books published by Allen&Unwin; It’s True, There Are Bugs in Your Bed (2004), It’s True, Space Turns You Into Spaghetti (2005), and It’s True, Pirates ate rats.

"Her books have been distributed in the UK, Australia and Canada and have recently been translated into Korean and Hebrew.

"Vanessa in the AntarcticaIn the past, Vanessa has made documentaries for Disney USA and Totally Wild and her filming trips have taken her to Cape Town, Uganda, Kenya, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Zanzibar, and Antarctica.

"Currently a Research Scientist at Duke University, Vanessa conducts research in the two Congos in Central Africa; chimpanzees in the People’s Republic of Congo and bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She spends her time waving red porcupines at baby bonobos and trying to outsmart chimpanzees.

"Vanessa is so moved by the plight of the bonobos (as few as 5,000 remain in the wild) that she is donating 10% of the proceeds of It’s every monkey for themselves to Lola ya bonobo, a sanctuary which released bonobos into the wild for the first time in June 2009 www.friendsofbonobos.org"

Related Reviews

 * Susan Block, "Bonobo Handshakes: Ape Sex, Chimp War, Human Ignorance and Some Hope", Counterpunch, July 12, 2010.

Related Sourcewatch

 * Friends of Bonobos