Meet Our Wonderful Speakers!

May 2004

From 26-28 March, attendees at IPPL-2004 heard from a wide variety of speakers from many nations. IPPL conferences are held at Headquarters every two years. The conferences enable members to meet representatives of many of the overseas projects assisted by IPPL, to learn about primate problems worldwide, and to meet IPPL staff members and officers. Meeting photos were taken by Dianne Taylor-Snow, Shirley McGreal, and Jean Martin.

Dr. Carlos Almazan

The speaker at our opening dinner on Friday evening was Dr. Carlos Almazan from Chile, who introduced us to that nation's amazing beauty and diversity. Despite Chile having no native primates, Carlos and his wife Elba Muñoz Lopez maintain a sanctuary named Siglo XXI for primates smuggled into Chile from neighboring Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina.

On Saturday morning IPPL Chairwoman Shirley McGreal welcomed our guests. She announced that IPPL-2004 was our eighth conference. Only five people have attended every single one: these are Ruthie Feldmann, Bonnie Brown, Jean and Peter Martin, and Shirley McGreal.

David van Gennep (Netherlands) and Leonor Galhardo (Portugal)

Sara Laub

Sara has been working on a project of special interest to IPPL-UK, which has funded her study of the mona monkeys resident on the islands of São Tome and Principe, which lie in the Gulf of Guinea, west of Gabon. Sara was returning from São Tome on what she expected would be an uneventful trip home to England, with a change of plane in Lisbon. However she found herself seated next to an inept monkey smuggler carrying two baby monkeys in cylindrical tubes. Even though her assertive actions got the man arrested for a misdemeanor, both of the traumatized mona monkeys died in captivity.

Leonor Galhardo

Leonor flew in from Portugal to tell members about her work with the Eurogroup for Animal Welfare, a federation of leading animal protection groups. The Eurogroup has developed a pioneering project in Portugal that is to pave the way for all European Union zoos to be licensed. This will take place in April 2005, and Leonor described the work being done in Portugal to improve implementation of zoo legislation.

Chanee (Aurélien Brulé)

Chanee ("Chanee" is the Thai word for gibbon) was born Aurélien Brulé in Fayence in the south of France. He became interested in gibbons when he was just seven years old. After a decade observing captive gibbons and learning about their behavior, he decided he needed to do more. So, at the age of 18, Chanee set out for Indonesia, where he established a gibbon sanctuary named Kalaweit on the island of Borneo. Borneo is home to two gibbon species, the agile gibbon and Mueller's gibbon.

In 2003 the project established a radio station called "Kalaweit FM" which plays popular Indonesian music with regular conservation messages. The messages have deterred illegal capture and possession of gibbons and led some people owning gibbons as pets to hand them over to the sanctuary.

Chanee, from Indonesia’s Kalaweit sanctuary

Kalaweit aims to rehabilitate all healthy gibbons to the wild and to provide compassionate care for those animals who cannot be released due to health or emotional problems.

In 2003 Kalaweit opened a sanctuary for siamangs and gibbons on the island of Marak off the coast of Sumatra. Within just a few months, over 60 animals had reached the center.

Bala Amarasekaran

Bala Amarasekaran founded the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in 1995. The sanctuary is located on 100 acres of rain-forest in a hilly area outside Freetown, Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone has endured many years of civil war and it is only rarely that Bala can leave his charges. So we were very excited that Bala finally made it to an IPPL conference.

Bala told members about the sanctuary and its resident chimpanzees, most of whom live in large electric fenced enclosures by day, yet move voluntarily into large cages at night. During the hostilities, two free-living chimpanzees from a forested area took up residence in the protected area and later came back carrying babies.

Michael Budkie

Michael Budkie founded the group SAEN. ("Stop Animal Experimentation Now.") It is based in Milford, Ohio. Michael founded the organization in 1996. While working for all animals, SAEN has always emphasized primate abuse. By using the US Freedom of Information Act, Michael has obtained documents showing the abuse to which primates were subjected in U.S. laboratories. SAEN always follows up by local publicity campaigns and complaints to government agencies.

Linda Howard

Linda Howard's presentation was about the US pet trade in primates. Linda has collected data about the abuse of primates kept as family pets and the biting incidents that result as the primates grow up and exercise their independence. She also discussed diseases that can spread from nonhuman primate to human primate and vice versa. At present no federal law regulates the sale of pet primates, although some states, counties and municipalities do.

Louis Ng

Louis Ng is founder-director of the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES), which is based in Singapore. In 2002 he was named winner of the 2002 Youth Environmental Award. The group works for a variety of animal protection causes. Louis' concern for animals started with his observations of the use of chimpanzees as "photo-props" at the Singapore Zoo. Thanks to ACRES' efforts, the practice was stopped. However, such use of orangutans continues. Louis has also investigated the living conditions under which many captive chimps in Southeast Asia live.

Recently Louis has been working on a case involving trafficking of wild-caught dolphins on documentation claiming the animals were captive-born. He compares this case with that of the "Taiping Four" gorillas shipped from Nigeria to Malaysia in January 2002 on similar false "captive-born" documentation.

Shirley McGreal, Dianne Taylor-Snow, Jane Dewar and audience members

Shirley, Dianne and Jane have all worked hard on the case of four gorillas smuggled from Nigeria via South Africa to Malaysia in January 2002. The case first came to IPPL's attention when a member attending IPPL-2002 showed us photos of the baby gorillas and provided us with the business card of a company called NigerCom solutions involved in the deal. Dianne flew to Malaysia and managed to find out that the animals were indeed there - but being kept off-exhibit.

Gorilla Haven’s Jane Dewar and Limbe’s Jonathan Kang

Later IPPL was able to identify the members of the smuggling ring and has been working tirelessly to get the gorillas confiscated and sent to Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon and to get the members of the smuggling conspiracy prosecuted.

Jonathan Kang and Livia Wittiger

Jonathan, an African caregiver, and Livia, an overseas volunteer, made a presentation about Limbe Wildlife Centre. The Centre is based in Limbe, Cameroon, and its resident primates include gorillas, chimpanzees, drills, mandrills, patas monkeys, and many species of guenons, many extremely rare.

Stichting AAP

David van Gennep, Executive Director of Stichting AAP, a sanctuary active in both the Netherlands and Spain, discussed AAP's program to provide shelter for confiscated primates and abandoned pets, now numbering over 100. In addition, AAP has undertaken the responsibility for caring for chimpanzees no longer used by the Biomedical Primate Research Center in the Netherlands. Spacious quarters are being built in the Netherlands for those infected with human diseases. The uninfected chimpanzees will be sent to live at Primadomus near Alicante, Spain, where they will live in large enclosures built on 200 acres of land.

Nancy Megna

Nancy Megna is a member of the Laboratory Primate Advocacy Group, which consists of former laboratory workers. She has prepared a presentation comparing the lives of monkeys in the wild with that of monkeys in laboratories, with a musical background. Especially touching were photos of individual laboratory primates killed in laboratories and lovingly remembered by their human friends.

Lucy Molleson relaxes in a hammock on IPPL’s grounds

Lucy Molleson

Lucy Molleson has studied primates in Peru. Forest destruction and the local pet and bushmeat trade threaten the animals. Lucy is working with a Peruvian couple named Carlos and Helene Palomino who, using their own resources and with help from IPPL-UK, have acquired 50 hectares of forested land inhabited by several primate species. Carlos and Helene also maintain the Ikamaperu Sanctuary for rescued Peruvian primates. Lucy's presentation introduced several rescued primates, which included rare woolly monkeys.

Elba Muñoz Lopez

Elba focused on the primates held at the Siglo XXI Primate Rescue Center in Peñaflor, Chile. Species held include spider monkeys, woolly monkeys, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys, and a tamarin. Some of the primates reached the center from laboratories and some were held as pets, which is illegal in Chile. One abandoned pet was found roaming around in the arid Atacama Desert of Chile and would not have survived unless rescued.

During the Members' Forum, member Valerie Buchanan discussed how, with funds from IPPL and Save The Chimps, the chimpanzee enclosures at Kumasi Zoo were improved so that two female chimps that had been kept isolated from each other for two decades in separate cages were integrated by the merging of the cages and now live together.

Thanks to our Caterers

IPPL members were asked to submit questionnaires about the meeting. Everyone rated the quality of the vegetarian food as excellent or good. Thanks to Simply Delicious, a Summerville caterer, and Erimic Associates, for providing such great food.

Thanks also to members Ann Boone, Donna Gibson, and Jane Dewar, for bringing baked goods and to IPPL staffers Donetta,Lauren, and Danielle for making scrumptious cookies and cakes, including the famous IPPL conference "pineapple dump cake."