Lincoln Park Zoo, Facebook and Twitter

Lincoln Park Zoo is on Facebook and Twitter. You don't need a Facebook or Twitter account to view either. What's cool about the Facebook account are the photos and videos. The zoo is posting photos of collection changes (see you in Detroit, Lee!) and zoo fans can post their own photos! You can also view a video of the free flight area in Bird House. It's a small video so I hope LPZ, like other zoos, will have it's own youtube.com channel.

The Peaceable Primate Sanctuary is not on Facebook or Twitter. Should we be? Scott's very busy--the first group of baboons is arriving soon and the website is being revamped. Perhaps, down the road, after the baboons and Scott are settled in their new habitats, Facebook and Twitter may be more relevant and practical replacements for this blog.

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Musicians for Apes

Here is an email I received last month from Harry Hmura, a professional musician and a Peaceable Primate Sanctuary supporter. Baboons are monkeys, not apes, but Harry supports us all:

Hello,

Hoping this email finds you well..,

Several years back I created m4apes, a foundation/web site, bringing attention to the cruel mistreatment of Great Apes used in entertainment and research and how breeders, trainers, Hollywood, corporations, live stage shows, etc continue to fail our closest living relatives. The web site, m4apes, has now become Musicians For Apes continuing to bring awareness and education of their likeness to us and yet the mistreatment they still face in entertainment, research, pet trade, habitat loss... We need to educate others of these damaging and outdated practices in an industry where they don't belong, "entertainment" and of their conservation. We need not consume the entertainment industry using apes, nor products which devastate them and their homelands and for change in alternative and modern research.


Please.., visit the new site, www.musiciansforapes.com Become a member, create a profile, network, interact reaching more people, musicians, fans, friends and the sanctuaries, organizations and the awesome people helping and caring. We need support from you, your friends, fans, associates... to Speak For Those Who Can't!

And if you're on facebook, please sign up again at the new Musicians For Apes group replacing the old, m4apes.

Awareness, education, regard and respect for others improves our lives and theirs, Great Apes and all of us above and below sea level....


Thank you,

harry



Harry Hmura Founder/director of Musicians For Apes www.musiciansforapes.com

www.harryhmura.com (new site & CD coming soon)

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Kipenzi: Loved One

The National Zoo's Western Lowland Gorilla troop had a birth in January! Mandara, who was born at Lincoln Park Zoo in April, 1992 and is referred to as "super-mom", gave birth to a female on January 10th. The NZ is conducting a contest regarding the baby's name and I voted for Kipenzi which means "loved one".

You can view a video of Mandara and her infant and listen to a talk by their keeper above. You can read notes about the baby's growth at the NZ Primate Homepage.

The NZ has a photostream including video of not only Mandara and baby but also new arrivals and other animals at the zoo at: National Zoo. This is really exciting!

I'm hoping Scott will do something similiar at the sanctuary after the baboons arrive.

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Red-Tailed Hawks at Martha's Farm

I will share a secret with you -- I love reading Martha Stewart's blog! She loves animals, wildlife and nature in addition to cooking, crafts and homemaking. Kind of like me. Martha's post today features red-tailed hawks. She took her photos with a Canon G10.

You can read more about the red-tailed hawk at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology All About Birds website. You can listen to songs of this species, kind of cool when you have cats. The Cornell Lab was responsible for reintroducing the Peregrine Falcon on the east coast and establishing the Peregrine Fund in 1970.

In December,2004, I posted 3X about NYC's very famous pair of red-tailed hawks, Pale Male and Lola.

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The Footprints We Leave Behind

From the New York Times:

Prints Show a Modern Foot in Prehumans


By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: February 26, 2009
Footprints uncovered in Kenya show that as early as 1.5 million years ago an ancestral species, almost certainly Homo erectus, had already evolved the feet and walking gait of modern humans.

Studying the more than a dozen prints, scientists determined that the individuals had heels, insteps and toes almost identical to those in humans, and that they walked with a long stride similar to human locomotion.

The researchers who made the discovery, as well as independent specialists in human origins, said the prints helped explain fossil and archaeological evidence that erectus had adapted the ability for long-distance walking and running. Erectus skeletons from East Asia revealed that the species, or a branch of it, had migrated out of Africa as early as 1.8 million years ago.

No erectus foot bones have been found anywhere, but other well-preserved, yet incomplete, skeletons showed the species to be taller and less robust than earlier hominids. The strides of these footsteps suggest that the individuals were an average of 5 feet, 7 inches tall; one, presumably a child, was 3 feet tall.

The site of the discovery is about five miles east of Lake Turkana, near the village of Ileret, in northern Kenya.

Anatomists analyzing the Ileret prints said the heel, instep, balls of the foot and short toes were considerably distinct from the prints discovered in Tanzania and almost identical to modern humans. Most obviously, the big toe is in line with the rest of the toes, not angling away from other toes, as on an afarensis foot.

The footprints discovered in Kenya, researchers said, indicated that the erectus foot functioned much as a human foot does: the heel contacts the ground first; weight transfers along the arch to the ball of the foot; and the push-off is applied by the forefoot. In apes and apparently earlier hominids, this force comes from the midfoot.

Lieberman and Bramble believe we evolved legs longer than our arms for long-distance running. Read my post here about their theory.

Bears are plantigrade but other carnivores are digitigrade. Go to the excellent Animal Diversity Web at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology to learn more about locomotion. Watch the bear's feet in this youtube video walks as he first backs away from the cougar, then runs away:



Canines and cats are digitigrades. Toe walkers. Here is a video where you can view 3 species of carnivores, gray wolf, mountain lion and hyena, running:



What are baboons? Baboons are basically plantigrade quadrupeds. In other words, baboons walk and run on all four limbs using the soles of their hands and feets. Here's a youtube video of baboons running:

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Live Giraffe Birth

The following is a video of a live Masai giraffe birth at Safari West. Safari West is a private wildlife preserve in Santa Rosa, CA. Altho it is not a zoo, it is a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. (Note: I had to reduce the width to fit the blog page. If you are having difficulty viewing the video, the above title is a link to the video's page.)

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Susan Frank is Wild About Pets

Susan Frank has a Chicago-based internet radio program called Wild About Pets on Fridays at 12PM.

Her inaugural show featured a very interesting interview with 2 occupational therapists, Diana Henry and Deanna Sava, the authors of “Sensory Tools for Pets: Animals and People Helping Each Other”. Diana and Deanna talked about their experiences working with oversensitive and undersensitive dogs and cats. Imagine a cat who is too sensitive to walk on grass!

Susan's second show featured an interview with Dr. Stanley Gehrt about the Coyote Project in Chicago.

What's cool about her program is that while you are listening to the interview, you can also view photos of the animals being discussed at Susan's website.

You can also add Susan's show as a RSS feed to your homepage! Now that is supercool!

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Saying Goodbye to Andy

Hey gang, I have a story to tell you. When I was a little girl, about 4 years old, my mom and dad brought me to a zoo that had monkeys that you could hold and take pictures with. I took a picture with this cute little infant monkey that let me hold him like a baby, and from that day forward, I was determined to have a monkey of my own. I begged my parents for the rest of my days in their home to let me get a monkey and of course they said “NO” every time I asked. Boy oh boy, I should have listened to them. Seven years ago, I had been racing for four years and wasn’t planning on quitting anytime soon, but I wanted something really, really bad! I wanted to be a mommy. Well, motherhood definitely was NOT in the plans at the moment, so I did what I thought was the next best thing. I got myself a monkey. The cute little baby monkey that I had been wanting since I was 4 years old. He is a Black Capped Capuchin named Andy, and I got him from a breeder in Indiana when he was only six weeks old. I paid $5500 for him. Expensive, huh? Well guess what? That was the cheapest part! I had no idea what this monkey was eventually going to cost me.

Andy was the cutest thing I had ever seen. He was just like a baby. Wore diapers and drank from a baby bottle and even slept in my arms. I was finally a mommy. Well that didn’t last very long at all. In no time, he wouldn’t sit still, hated his cage, and was smart enough to break out of anything I put him in. He became extremely destructive, would not wear a diaper, became a very picky eater ,and, worst of all, aggressive! He bites! Hard!

I moved into my new home when Andy was about 3 years old. I had a special room built just for him. It is on the back side and center of my house. It is sunken in six inches with cement floors and a drain in the middle so that I can wash the whole thing down because he is VERY MESSY!!! It takes over an hour to clean his room and has to be done several times a week. Not to mention the circus act that takes at least two people to occupy him while getting the room cleaned. There are bars on the windows looking into my home so that he can see inside and bars on two of the windows looking outside. A third window to the outside is open to an outdoor cage. He has access to the both indoors and outdoors. Sounds like he has it made, doesn’t it? Well I thought so too. That room cost me a fortune. TWICE.

You see, monkeys are very smart. He can unlock windows and would open them all of the time, which is fine with the bars but not fine for my electric bill. So I rigged them shut. Well, he figured that out and broke the windows completely. So I had to get a screened-in patio that cost me 11 grand so that the mosquitoes would not infest his room and my house. The electric bill stays at a ridiculous rate.

He managed to pick at the walls enough until he could get his hands into it and then eventually tore giant holes around his room. He pulled out all of the insulation and the wiring. I had to contain him for a week while construction workers came in to rebuild the walls with a cement board, which, fortunately, he hasn’t been able to destroy yet. That cost me about four toes on my left foot. Just kidding, but it was about three more Gs.

Okay, so as I was learning the hard way how to contain Andy without him destroying my house, I thought we were finally getting somewhere. But then he started to become even more aggressive and demanding. My friends would come over and get too close to his outdoor cage, and before you know it, their cell phones were taken, or their sunglasses or earrings or necklaces. You name it ... if Andy could reach it, it was going to be his. I would have to go into his room to retrieve whatever he stole, but by the time I could get it back, if at all, it was destroyed beyond repair. Not to mention that I have scars all over my body from being attacked by him for trying to take what he had stolen away from him.

Andy is 7 years old now. He is still one of the cutest things I have ever seen, and he never ceases to amaze me with his intelligence and human similarities, but I have learned a great lesson over the last seven years. Andy is a primate. He is a wild animal. He is NOT and NEVER will be domesticated. He was born to be wild and was never meant to be a pet or a replacement for my child. He has spent seven years of his expected 45-year lifespan in captivity and all alone. Capuchin monkeys instinctively travel in packs. Andy now struggles with boredom and excessive loneliness. He constantly bangs on the bars for attention and destroys his toys or anything he can get to. He went through a stage where he was pulling out his hair on his tail. I can now only clean his room about twice a week because it is just too dangerous to handle him more than that. The fewer cleanings have put him in a horrible living situation, not to mention what it is doing to my home. I have to slide his food under the door because he is very possessive of it and will sometimes attack if he thinks I am going to take it away from him. The bites hurt really badly, and he has cut me open on several occasions, but the real pain is in my heart. I love him so much, and it hurts so badly when he is mean to me. I have to constantly remind myself that it’s not personal. It is his instinct.

After seven years, I now know that I can not give Andy the home that he needs and deserves. While searching the Internet, I found a primate sanctuary called Jungle Friends in Gainesville, Fla. It is located only 10 minutes from the racetrack that hosts the Gatornationals. I visited Jungle Friends during the rainout this year. I met Kari Bagnall, who runs the place. She is a wonderful woman who has given her life to saving monkeys like Andy, as well as monkeys who weren’t as lucky as Andy has been. She has more than 100 monkeys there at her sanctuary. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room for anymore monkeys because they just can not afford to build anymore enclosures right now. Jungle Friends works with donation money alone and volunteer helpers, so I had to pay $5,000 to buy the supplies to have an enclosure built for Andy.

I have cried a river over this. I am crying my eyes out right now as I type this. What have I done?!!! What was I thinking?!! Please don’t ever make the same mistake I have. If you or anyone you know thinks they want a monkey, PLEASE DON’T DO IT! Don’t do it to them, and don’t do it to yourselves. Like Kari says, monkeys belong in our hearts, not in hour homes!!

I had to give up my baby of seven years so that he can live a better life. He is human-imprinted now and could not survive in the wild, so he will have to remain in captivity, but at least this captivity will be with other monkeys and in a much better place than I could ever provide for him. I want to say thank you with all of my heart to my mom and my Aunt Faye. If it were not for the two of them, I could never have had Andy for as long as I did. They were there every step of the way to help me with him. It takes at least three people to care for one monkey. Thank you mom and Aunt Faye, and I am so sorry that I did this to you guys. I know it is hurting you as badly as it is hurting me to let him go.

I am going to turn Andy’s room into a play room for my little girl. I want to paint monkeys on the wall to always remind me of Andy and my experience with him. I will surely be a great story to tell my daughter. I am going to miss him so much!

I would like to ask a favor of you. If at all possible, please visit the Jungle Friends Web site at www.junglefriends.org and make a donation and/or sponsor Andy or any of the monkeys there. If you do, please tell ’em it’s from Angelle and Andy’s friends.

Thank you so much for reading my story!

God Bless you guys.

Always,
Angelle

The above story came via monkeywire.net from Jungle Friends in a June 27, 2008 email to supporters. Kari Bagnall, director of Jungle Friends, and Angelle Sampey, motorcycle drag racer, appeared in a Primetime segment on the primate pet-trade.

You can find the Primetime show at youtube.com. The 2nd of 3 parts featuring Angelle and Andy appears below followed by a video about Jungle Friends. Kari Bagnall appears in both videos.

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Chimpanzees Caught Up in the War

According to the United Nations, Thursday was the “International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict.” On his way to the International Summit in Nairobi to find a solution to the current crisis in Eastern Congo, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the following:

“The natural environment enjoys protection under Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions. But this protection is often violated during war and armed conflict…The United Nations attaches great importance to ensuring that action on the environment is part of our approach to peace…Let us renew our commitment to preventing the exploitation of the environment in times of conflict and to protecting the environment as a pillar of our work for peace.”

Based on these words I hope that in Nairobi they are also considering the impact of the war on Virunga National Park, which is epitomized by the following picture taken in Goma a few days ago by a photographer working for AFP:

Soldiers here often take baby chimpanzees and monkeys as pets. You may remember that in August we confiscated a chimpanzee from an major in the army. We are trying to see what we can do about the chimpanzee being held at the moment. It was again seen not far from Samantha’s house and we are trying to identify the soldier holding the chimpanzee in the picture below:

It is difficult to put much emphasis on conservation and animal welfare when there is so much human suffering in the Congo. However, if we don’t try to do something about these chimps, no one will.

By Pierre @ www.gorillacd.com, the official website of Virunga National Park DR Congo

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Congo Wildlife Rangers Missing

"Elie, the Commander of the Advance Force of Congo Rangers in Virunga National Park, talks about the dangers faced by his men in protecting the wildlife in the park, including the hippos and the critically endangered Mountain Gorillas."

Thousands flee as Congo rebels move into gorilla refuge
Congo Rebels Clash With Army, Seize "Endangered" Gorilla Park 39 Wildlife Park Rangers Missing In The Congo

The latest from the official website for Virunga National Park reports no ranger fatalities:

There is still a lot of confusion and misinformation regarding our Rangers who were at Rumangabo HQ 8 days ago who we have not yet managed to locate. Some remained at Rumangabo, some fled to Goma, and some traveled north towards Rutshuru and Kiwanja.

While we continue to compile this information, the good news is that we have had no reports of Ranger fatalities. Considering what happened last week this is a huge relief.

The above video is from Wildlife Direct, a nonprofit wildlife conservation organization established by Richard Leakey in 2006 to provide a voice and funds directly to those in the field protecting wildlife.

Virunga National Park was the site of 4 mountain gorilla murders last year. You can read more at my November 27, 2007 post: http://primatesanctuary.blogspot.com/2007/11/gorilla-massacre.html

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