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Remembering Dian Fossey’s grave site
Last month I had a wonderful visit from Lori Powell of nearby Seabrook Island and her sister LuAnn Short, who was visiting from Florida. LuAnn was keen to visit IPPL as she knew I had been a friend of her heroine, the famous gorilla expert Dian Fossey. In 2008 LuAnn had even visited Dian’s former…
Free the Animals 2012
“Ask not what primates can do for you, ask what you can do for primates.” Shirley tweaked a classic line from President Kennedy in her main presentation on the primate trade at an animal rights conference in Saint Louis, Missouri, last weekend. [field name = “shirleys-saen-presentation-re-trade”] The “Free the Animals” conference in the…
Austrian visitors spoil our gibbons
Friedrich Wendl is an IPPL supporter and gibbon adopter. He works for the Austrian parliament, but he also has literally decades of experience as a gibbon handler. Last week, he and his very patient friend and old army buddy, Johann Schmidt (who actually calls Omaha home now), came to visit the South Carolina Lowcountry for…
The Arashiyama Japanese macaques: An epic journey
One of the most beloved epic stories in China is known as the “Journey to the West.” It’s the tale of a traveling monk who has, as one of his most resourceful companions, a wily monkey. This week IPPL has been delighted to host as a visitor Dr. Linda Wolfe, a macaque expert and IPPL…
Remembering teaming up with “Chief”
I had a real surprise earlier this week when a package from Malaysia arrived in IPPL’s mail. It was a book I knew I’d never be able to read: a newly-published guide to Malaysia’s mammals—written in Bahasa Malaysia. However, I have been enjoying the photos of all the animals, especially the primates. But what made…
Tripa in trouble
Indonesia’s ecologically-sensitive Tripa peat swamp forest is still in trouble. As reported in IPPL News earlier this year, environmentalists around the world raised the alarm as fires raged throughout the Tripa forest, which is one of the last habitats remaining on earth of the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan. The Tripa forest, which is located in…
With apologies to William Carlos Williams
The Yellow Wheelbarrow so much depends upon a yellow wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white-handed gibbons. (Sorry, Bill.)
A new monkey house rises in the Amazon
This past spring saw an unusual amount of flooding along the Amazon River. Although animals of all sorts (including people) know to expect rising river levels during the rainy seasons, the deluge this year came as a surprise. As a result, our friends with Fundación Maikuchiga were left in a bit of a bind. The…
Beauty and the Beast
That’s how I think of them. Uma, with her demure eyes, lush growth of fur framing her face, and her graceful body. Scrappy, with his funny-looking teeth, gangly build (all knees and elbows) and… other peculiarities… But they’re a team, and they both celebrated birthdays last week: she was born September 5, 1985, and Scrappy’s…
Day of Caring 2012
Every year around this time we welcome a host of community volunteers to the sanctuary to help with a variety of back-burner tasks that we never seem to get around to and take advantage of the (marginally) cooler fall weather to do a bit of planting. It’s all part of the Day of Caring, an…
Remembering Hurricane Hugo
Now is the peak of the hurricane season. Hurricane Isaac, a Category 1 storm with winds around 70 miles per hour, struck Louisiana this week. This brought back memories of IPPL Headquarters being slammed by Hurricane Hugo, a Category 4 storm with steady winds of 135 miles per hour and gusts of up to 175…
Poisonous primates?
We’ve all heard about venomous snakes, frogs, and spiders, but what about primates? Venomous mammals are fairly rare. There are some shrews and shrew-like animals, and the male duck-billed platypus has a spur on his hind leg that can deliver a painfully toxic punch. But the primate order has a few species, too, that produce…
IPPL on YouTube: What’s missing?
What would you like to see on IPPL’s YouTube channel? We’re just getting started! We plan to include a lot more uploads about our gibbon sanctuary, feature more videos uploaded by our overseas partners, and more—but we’d love your suggestions! Post a reply or send us an e-mail about… what kind of footage you would…
A voice for primates at national animal conferences
Part of being a voice for the world’s overlooked primates means searching out sympathetic hearts and minds. The past two weekends, IPPL staff and volunteers have been spreading the word about primates as victims of trafficking and abuse at two major animal rights conferences, both held in Washington, D.C.: Taking Action for Animals (TAFA), sponsored…
Remembering Rita Miljo, the “Mother Teresa of Baboons”
Rita Miljo, founder of the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education, a baboon sanctuary in South Africa, died in a fire last Friday evening along with three of her favorite baboons. The blaze consumed her home as well as the clinic and nursery night quarters. No other staff, volunteers, or animals were harmed. Her loss…
A legal victory for night monkeys
Angela Maldonado deserves to be known as “Our Angel of the Night Monkeys.” Last year she filed charges against the most powerful scientist in Colombia. This year she won. On July 5, the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca in Colombia revoked the permits of noted malaria researcher Dr. Manuel Elkin Patarroyo. (His lab has benefitted greatly…
Meet Blair, our summer intern
How do you get an internship at IPPL’s gibbon sanctuary? By being talented, persevering, and dedicated to animals—just like Blair St. Ledger-Olson, who is staying here several weeks this summer and is working on a project for her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies at Hollins University, in Roanoke, Virginia. Maybe having studied the rare Peaks…
A tragedy in Eden
It’s in the news again: a human being was seriously attacked by chimpanzees. That was the main topic I was asked about at my friend’s potluck last night: they wanted an explanation for this shocking behavior. This time the scene of the tragedy was Jane Goodall’s Chimp Eden sanctuary in South Africa. Although…
