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Painting for Primates on International Monkey Day
If you’re going to be around the South Carolina Lowcountry next week, please join us for a “Paint it Forward” event at West Ashley Wine and Design, 1331 Ashley River Road, Charleston, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 14—which also happens to be International Monkey Day! For $35 you will have the opportunity…
A drill monkey tracker turns filmmaker
Drill monkeys might be the world’s largest monkeys. We’re actually not 100 percent sure because there has been so little fieldwork done on these enigmatic primates. They are hard to keep in captivity and even harder to find in the wild. These close relatives of the similarly-sized mandrill live only in the forests…
Remembering the Taiping Four gorilla case
Every two years IPPL holds a conference for our supporters, and we bring in speakers working for primates around the world. In 2002, our meeting was held at IPPL Headquarters March from 22 to 24. I thought you might like to know how a “tip-off” led to a long investigation that had worldwide ripples. The…
Women to watch
Every year our town paper, the Summerville Journal Scene, carries a special section on local “Women to Watch.” Ten women representing a wide variety of occupations are chosen for this honor. This year, the recipients included, a single mom who battled poverty to start her own law firm, the director of an award-winning bed and…
Scarecrows on the Square 2013
Every year at Halloween, the small town of Summerville invites local nonprofits and businesses to build scarecrows to exhibit in the town square. Well over 50 exhibits are on display this year. The square is always crowded with excited children and adults. Thousands of people visit the scarecrows every year. It’s especially pleasant at night…
Volunteer spotlight: Susan Parker
It’s been like a nine-year “alternative spring break” for Susan Parker: she has been making the six-hour drive from her home in Norfolk, Virginia, to help out at the IPPL sanctuary for a week at a time ever since 2004. This month really does mark the ninth anniversary of her first visit here. On that…
Halloween treats from Oz
We’ve been enjoying a return visit of zookeeper Sophie Miller, from Australia (a.k.a. “Oz”). She very fond of gibbons and last visited us two years ago with a couple of her fellow gibbon-loving friends from Down Under. She also enjoys Halloween and related phenomena (like vampires). Today she suggested that our gibbons might like some…
It’s pumpkin time!
Many of our gibbons, we’ve learned, really enjoy pumpkins. Not only do they like to eat the raw squash itself, but they also like nibbling the on the seeds. So here are some of our favorite punkin pics from the last couple of days….
“Kindred Beings”
This week’s post is written by guest blogger Sheri Speede, DVM, the founder/director of In Defense of Animals-Africa and its Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon. She has just written a memoir, titled Kindred Beings: What Seventy-Three Chimpanzees Taught Me About Life, Love and Connection. Check out the book’s Web site and Facebook page for…
Days of Caring, 2013
What could be better than one Day of Caring? Two Days of Caring, of course! This annual volunteer blitz—which is organized by our Trident United Way—has been expanding over the years. On September 11, 2001, the Day of Caring also became a way to for people in our area to come together in community and…
A garden for gibbons
Today we had a great group of kids come out to our sanctuary and plant some winter veggies for our gibbons. Their project was part of the annual Trident United Way volunteer bonanza known as the Day of Caring. The kids are from the University School of the Lowcountry, and their school has sent…
A note of gratitude from Cameroon
Earlier today we received a special thank-you from our long-time friends at a wonderful primate sanctuary in Central Africa. The Limbe Wildlife Centre currently cares for more than 360 native Cameroonian wild animals. That includes about 240 primates: some 16 gorillas, 50 chimpanzees, and over 175 monkeys now call the place home. The LWC is…
Bali, meet Bubbins
This past Monday, our gibbons welcomed a new (four-footed) arrival to the IPPL sanctuary: Bali is an older male Asian short-clawed otter whom we invited to be a companion for Bubbins, a female otter who was “widowed” this past April when her partner Dua had to be put to sleep. Bali himself lost his mate…
A photo-shoot with Tong and Gibby
The Day of Caring annual volunteer blitz is just three weeks away! Matching thousands of volunteers with hundreds of projects benefitting local charities, this massive event has been growing steadily in popularity since 2000 and is organized by our Trident United Way (TUW). IPPL has taken part in the Day of Caring since 2004, and…
Arun Rangsi’s backstory
Our first rescued lab gibbon came to IPPL in 1981 as a very unhappy little gibbon. Like other primates who have grown up in isolation in a barren laboratory environment, he was prone to repetitive, abnormal behaviors. He banged his head so much that he had a little callus over one ear. Although he was…
Yoga pros do primate poses at IPPL
Andrea Boyd is a long-time IPPL supporter who co-founded the Jivamukti yoga studio eight years ago with her husband Jeffrey Cohen in nearby Mount Pleasant. She visited the IPPL sanctuary today and brought with her a couple of friends and fellow yoga practitioners, Elii Manzo and Jason (Jay) McNamara. The three of them came to…
Remembering Project Bangkok Airport
Last week I told you about the collection of primate postage stamps recently donated to IPPL by our late member David Rand of Berkeley, California. That got me thinking about the time when I initially met David, a man who had a passion for primates and travel, as I did. It was when I was…
An amazing primate stamp collection
A treasure trove of stamps—all consisting of primate images—has come to rest at IPPL’s Headquarters in Summerville. IPPL’s longtime supporter David Rand had painstakingly pulled together this unique assemblage. Sadly, David passed away late last year. After his death, David’s brother Laury kindly contacted IPPL to see if would like to have David’s primate stamp…
