Blog
© Drill Ranch
- All
- Africa
- Americas
- Asia
- Blog
- Bushmeat
- International Primate Trade
- IPPL Advocacy
- IPPL Sanctuary
- IPPL Spotlight
- Our Global Partners
- Partner Spotlight
- Pet Primates
- Primate Labs
- Primates in Entertainment
- Remembering
- Zoos
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…
Igor’s 25th anniversary at IPPL
Twenty-five years ago today, Igor was released from the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates and allowed to retire to IPPL. He had spent 21 years at LEMSIP and, before that, five years at a drug company. Igor was wild-born, probably in the rainforests of Thailand, so we will never be able to…
New chimpanzee habitat for DRC sanctuary
With the help of funding from IPPL and our generous supporters, a new forested enclosure built especially for sanctuary chimpanzees in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo welcomed its first residents last month. Construction on the 2.7 hectare (nearly 7 acre) electric-fenced enclosure at the Centre de Réhabilitation des Primates de Lwiro (CRPL) started in…
Gibbon conference is a first!
1. How can you get a gibbon to take his medicine? 2. What do you do with twin baby gibbons? 3. What’s the connection between palm oil and gibbons? These are just a few of the questions we asked and answered at the conference that IPPL Executive Director Shirley McGreal and I attended last week.…
Guest post by a “half woman, half gibbon” from Oz
My name is Sophie Miller, and I am a zookeeper from Australia—also known as “Oz”! [field name=flickr-slideshow-sophie-miller] I work mainly with a variety of primates, but gibbons have a special place in my heart. I have a bumper sticker that reads “half woman, half gibbon,” and it definitely suits me! My fellow Australian primate keepers…
A field report from South Africa’s baboon sanctuary
Hello from C.A.R.E.! This is day two, and I’m starting to get acclimated. The first day was spent meeting the baboons and catching up with C.A.R.E. founder Rita Miljo, who sends her best to IPPL and its supporters. We are staying at the wonderful Mfubu lodge in a cottage overlooking the Olifants River. No alarm…
Zanesville deaths highlight the tragedy of exotic animal ownership
Last weekend, I found myself in the midst of a “teachable moment” with one of my hair stylists, as we discussed the horrible shooting deaths that occurred in Zanesville, Ohio, just one week ago. All last week, it seemed like the whole nation was talking about the tragic killing by local law enforcement of nearly…
