In Senegal’s remote Kedougou region, a community of chimpanzees has transformed the lives of a group of local men, offering them a path out...

In Senegal’s remote Kedougou region, a community of chimpanzees has transformed the lives of a group of local men, offering them a path out of dangerous gold mining and into scientific research. For Michel Tama Sadiakhou, the change came about 15 years ago. Like many young men in Senegal’s far southeast, he once worked in informal gold mines known locally as dioura — a perilous livelihood marked by deep tunnels, toxic gases and frequent cave-ins. Today, he is a senior researcher studying one of the world’s most unusual chimpanzee populations. Sadiakhou is one of five local researchers, most without a high school diploma, working on the Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project, a long-running study founded in 2001 by...