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Happy Howl-o-Ween!
Our animal care staff have again come up with some spook-tacular treats for our gibbons’ annual Halloween veggie feast!Maynard dove for the pineapple before we had a chance to show it off to most of the other gibbons. But we forgave him: today is the sixth anniversary of his arrival at IPPL! Time to go…
Four ways to celebrate International Gibbon Day
Tomorrow, October 24, is International Gibbon Day. And Halloween is just around the corner. That means tomorrow would be a perfect day to work on your very own gibbon mask or costume—and we’ve got some links to show you how! You know that no one else in your neighborhood will come to the trick-or-treat marathon…
Recovering from the rain
Last weekend, South Carolina experienced a “Thousand Year Flood,” as a low pressure system held in place by Hurricane Joaquin dumped over two feet of water in many parts of the state. We are grateful that we did not experience the same level of damage as some of our fellow South Carolinians, especially those in…
Painting for Primates 2
IPPL supporters got in touch with their artistic side last Friday at a creative fundraiser that also honored our adorable gibbons. The Art Place is a new do-it-yourself studio in the Charleston area that is also open for charity events. The owner, Vanessa Steele, kindly offered to donate proceeds from the entire day’s worth of…
Banana pops
It’s officially fall now, but for the most part it still feels like summer. Lately the gibbons have been enjoying frozen banana pops as enrichment—our special recipe. We had lots of very ripe bananas among our donated pallets of Costco produce recently, and in the warm weather those babies just don’t keep well, so…
All chimpanzees are now endangered
And that’s actually good news! As of yesterday, all chimpanzees in the U.S. are now classified as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). That wasn’t always the case. In 1990, wild chimpanzees were classified as fully “endangered” under the ESA and entitled to full protection under the law. But captive chimps—in the U.S. alone—were…
Speaking up for lab monkeys
Today is the last day to submit a comment in support of a Rulemaking Petition to improve conditions for U.S. lab monkeys. This opportunity (which had been extended two months) expires at 11:59 PM, so don’t delay, and please share with your friends. Here’s a sample comment to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Please feel…
An Ethiopian travelogue (with monkeys)
Baboons and birds, colobus monkeys and carnivores, hyenas and humans. Former IPPL volunteer Christian Runnels stopped by the IPPL sanctuary last week to give a presentation to our staff on his encounters with wildlife in Ethiopia, where he lived for two years. It’s a great country for primate watching, judging by the photos he…
Do the Funky Gibbon!
How would you like to dance your way to primate protection? It’s easy if you do the Funky Gibbon: here’s how! Download or listen to the 1970s hit single “The Funky Gibbon” via Amazon, iTunes, or Spotify, and IPPL will get a donation that we can use to help care for gibbons at our…
Farewell Glenda
Glenda came to IPPL on May 13, 2013 along with her family: her mate Gary, their daughter Kendra, and son Thai. A Silver Springs, Florida tourist attraction where she and Gary had lived most of their lives was being turned into a State Park. It was urgent that 450 animals, including four gibbons, be re-located…
Invisible apes
We recently received an interesting book from (and written by) Dr. John Steckley, a Canadian anthropology professor who is primarily an expert in some pretty obscure human stuff–he is the last known speaker of the Wyandot (or Huron) language. But, as he states in the opening pages of “Gibbons: The Invisible Apes,” perhaps he is naturally…
Look for IPPL at animal rights conference
IPPL is again a Silver Sponsor of the Animal Rights National Conference, an annual bonanza of practical information, inspiring speakers, and networking opportunities for animal rights activists across the country and beyond. The organizers (Farm Animal Rights Movement) note that this conference is also “the world’s largest and longest-running animal rights gathering, hailing back to…
From chimpanzees to gibbons
Renate Winch knows a lot about chimpanzees. She even knows the secret to hippopotamus bliss (scratch them behind the ears). But this week was her first encounter with a sanctuary full of gibbons. Although she has been an IPPL supporter since the 1990s, her long-time residence in Africa meant that she has not had a…
Homegrown peppers
Hot, hot, hot! It’s hot here in South Carolina, but don’t worry Whoop-Whoop, our homegrown sweet peppers are NOT! The last couple of years we have been trying to grow some additional produce on the IPPL grounds. For years we have done this successfully with fruit. Muscadine grapes have always…
A children’s book on chimpanzees in Cameroon
At IPPL, we take pride in helping fund dozens of grassroots primate sanctuaries and rescue centers in countries where primates are native. One of the sanctuaries we help support is the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon, which cares for apes that have been rescued from the trade in bushmeat, pets, and animals used for…
You can help monkeys in research!
[Update 6/29/15: The deadline has been extended to August 31, 2015, 11:59 PM! There’s still time to file a comment on the government Web site!] You have a unique opportunity to make life better for lab monkeys! There are an estimated 110,000 monkeys living in U.S. research facilities. Of course, we feel they don’t belong…
We’re keeping our cool!
Yes, we finally have a new cooler! Thanks to the success of our crowdfunding campaign on LoveAnimals.org, we have been able to purchase and install a new second cooler for our fruits and veggies in our Animal Care Cottage. The cottage is where our daily food preparation for the gibbons takes place. Prior to…
Thank you for loving animals!
This week we wrapped up our crowdfunding campaign on LoveAnimals.org: we have reached—and even surpassed—our $4,000 goal! Now we will be able to put those funds toward a new additional cooler to store the bonanza of donated produce we have been getting from Costco. Many, many thanks to our wonderful supporters (including several anonymous friends—you know…
