Ranomafana is located on the southeastern side of Madagascar, at the edge of what is called the "High Plateau," a steep, mountainous region so inhospitable it was all but unexplored before Wright began taking walks there in 1986. There are seven remote Malagasy villages surrounding Ranomafana and to found the park, Wright needed the cooperation of everyone living at each of them. So back in 1987, Wright decided it was time to tour the local communities. This was not easy walking.

Each village required ten days of rugged jungle bushwhacking to reach and ten days of jungle bushwhacking to leave. She was working at Duke University back then and the year she completed her tour, "What the hell does this lady have on her leg?" became question thirty-three on the medical school's tropical medicine final exam. The answer was leishmaniasis, also known as the sand fly bug for where it originates, or black fever for what it does to the skin. She also had hookworm, tapeworm, and, by her own estimation, "just about every other tropical disease known to man."

And walking was only part of the program. Every visit required a rum-soaked pow-wow with tribal elders that lasted throughout the night, occasionally for days. The rum in question is tokagasy, a home-brewed jungle jet-fuel that burns going down and burns coming up. So not only was she hiking over mountains to get to these villages, she was doing it dog-sick and sporting a king-sized hangover to boot.

But it worked. The park was founded. And wondrous, a fact I quickly learned on my visit. In the years since, Wright and I have stayed in touch as well. In part, this is because the photographer I brought along on that trip ended up meeting and, eventually, marrying Wright's daughter. In part, this is because Wright is both one of the most learned scientists I've ever met and-this is key-also one of the most patient. This means I can call her up with all sorts of inane questions and she always answers all of them-without calling me stupid along the way. This is a big plus.

In fact, in the decade I've known Wright, only once have I heard her actually brand anything stupid. That was last summer. In March of 2009, Madagascar "suffered" a coup. The President was ousted in favor of a 34- year old former disc jockey turned mayor of the country's capital city turned-with the help of the military-warlord.

Wright branded the whole sorry affair as stupid, perhaps because she was in something of a panic back then. Not because she's any stranger to political upheaval (she founded Ranomafana in the middle of another coup), but because the nature of this particular upheaval had little to do with politics and everything to do with logging.

Madagascar is home to some of the world's rarest hard woods. Within days of the coup, armed gangs, allegedly funded by Chinese traders, entered two of Madagascar's world-renowned national parks, Marojejy and Masoala parks, and began to log rosewood, ebonies, and other valuable trees. There were rumors, so far unsubstantiated, that it was actually the Asian logging concerns who funded the coup.

Either way, the illegal logging push was only the beginning of the problem. Last month, Conservation International released some of the most disturbing pictures I've ever seen. These photos do not depict the now razed forests-instead they depict what the forest razers have been eating.

A trade in bush meat-specifically the meat of endanger lemurs (our oldest living primate relatives)-has arisen. Originally, the lemurs were being hunted by loggers wanting to feed themselves, but now an upscale underground market has developed and the local mafias have moved in and made the slaughter a mainstay of their illegal activities.

To quote the Conservation International report: "Since March 2009, there have been a set of environmental catastrophes in one of the world's most important countries for biodiversity conservation ranging from the illegal felling of trees in national parks for export to Asia, collection of animals for the pet trade, and now the hunting of lemurs for bushmeat."

Wright was upset not just because the forests she's devoted her life to studying were being decimated, but also because the lemurs-which is the reason she got into the forest protection business in the first place-were also becoming lunch. The CI report is the proof in her pudding.

And it's not just Madagascar suffering from an illegal bushmeat trade. As a recent Humane Society report pointed out: "Cameroon, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Liberia are the major producers of tropical timber in an African industry dominated by European logging companies. As British, French, German, Italian, and other international logging companies plow into the African forests, they not only destroy and fragment wildlife habitats, but they also expedite the bushmeat trade."

How big is this trade? One study done in Cameroon found the annual slaughter totaled out at 800 lowland gorillas. A fact that helps explain why 50 percent of all primates are now endangered.

Here's what makes that so much more incredible. In a number of country's in Europe (and many more are considering the legislation) primates are now afforded the exact same protection as humans under the law.

Why you ask? Because in over a century of looking, scientists have no been able to find any real differences between our furry cousins and ourselves.

Dr. Richard Granger, the head of Dartmouth's Brain Engineering Lab, who has done considerable work on this question, believes that the only key difference between humans and other animals is in carrying capacity. Literally, we have bigger skulls and bigger brains. The only difference between us and the lower orders is the number of connections between neurons. The more space the more brain the more brain the more connections. What makes us human comes down to phrenology and nothing more.

My brother has a daughter who was born with a diminished cranium. Her brain, by extension, is also diminished. She's a wonderful kid who, most likely, will never function normally. A "real" job will probably not be in her future. But no one is suggesting we go out and hunt down her for a barbecue. But if you look at what's going on in Africa with other primates-well, this is exactly what's going on.

In this, Wright was, as usual, right. What's going on is stupid. And, at least according to this reporter and the laws in Europe, cannibalism in everything but name.