Helen & Peppy

When the rescued lab gibbon, Arun Rangsi settled at IPPL, we knew it would not be long before he needed a female companion, as gibbons live in monogamous pairs. In April 1982, a New York laboratory offered us a girl gibbon called Helen. An IPPL volunteer drove to New York to collect her. He found Helen sitting dejectedly in a cage. In the next cage an unhappy-looking boy gibbon named Peppy sat sucking his thumb. Clearly, these gibbons were friends. After a series of phone-calls, Shirley succeeded in persuading laboratory officials to send BOTH gibbons to IPPL, thus rescuing another lab animal! Helen and Peppy are inseparable and totally devoted to each other.

Peppy is now 20 but still sucks his thumb. His only health problem was when he once sucked his thumb raw. There is no way to keep a bandage on a gibbon, and the vet said we just had to hope his thumb would heal on its own. Fortunately it did!

More photos.

Peppy and Helen: 25 Years with IPPL.