Christophe Boesch

Christophe Boesch (11 August 1951 – 14 January 2024) was a French-Swiss primatologist who studied chimpanzees. He and his wife, Hedwige Boesch-Ackermann, worked together, co-wrote articles and co-directed documentaries about chimpanzees.

Biography Boesch was born in St. Gallen, Switzerland on 11 August 1951. He was of French and Swiss nationality. Boesch received his degree in biology from the University of Geneva, and his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 1984 under the supervision of Professor Hans Kummer. His dissertation was entitled "Nut-Cracking Behaviour of Wild Chimpanzees".

Discoveries and other contributions Boesh is largely known for his work in the field studying chimpanzees. In his book Wild Cultures: A Comparison between Chimpanzee and Human Cultures (2012), he argued for the importance of studying the traditions and habits that animals learn and use in their groups. Boesch found that the cognitive complexity of chimpanzees is underestimated, for example, in their abilities to cooperate, teach their young or use tools. He also observed that chimpanzee behavior in captivity tended to have little relevance to understanding their behavior in the wild.

Through his conservation activities in West Africa, he helped to create national parks in Liberia and Guinea and protected areas in the Côte d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone.

Boesch and several other scientists found evidence about how easily disease can be passed from human tourists and researchers to the great apes; this research has helped to make great ape tourism more hygienic.

Boesch and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have also contributed to our understanding of chimpanzee mating habits through collection and analysis of chimpanzee DNA.