The Little Rock Zoo has no answers for us about our Chimp Louie dieing! Nor do they care!

So many questions and no answers
by Greg Harrison

It has now been over 2 weeks since we received the email informing us of Louie’s passing, and while the grief, emptiness, and sadness is still unbearable at times, in those moments when we have some time to ponder lucid thoughts, all we are left with are many, many questions….and no answers.

Judie has always given you, her readers across the globe, the opportunity to probe and discuss while learning about apes and monkeys ion ways no other site on the internet provides. Her point of view is like no other, as we have owned primates, worked with primates, and when challenged with the ultimate questions that have confronted so many private owners before us – “What do you do when you know they can’t be with you any longer?” – We answered with what we thought at the time was the correct thing to do – and we placed them.

Here is a link to the story that was posted on the internet - fed by a press release by the PR folks at the zoo – and not really reported on. Take a quick second to read the link below, and then save the link so you can follow along with the tale:

http://www.katv.com/story/15298888/zoo-sadly-reports-loss-of-louie-the-chimp

Now that Louie has passed on from this world, and we have begun the grieving process, this blog would like for you readers to take a few minutes and ponder the questions that are running through our collective brains today:

1. Why weren’t we informed that Louie was sick? Why weren’t we asked for any of the “gen etic records” that the press release claims that could have “aided in the diagnosis” of Louie’s disease?

2. The zoo knew where the chimps were born. We discussed that with them at length before they went there. Why didn’t the zoo veterinarian call the facility, or us, to discuss her needs?

3. What resources did the vet tap into across the world for help with Louie’s condition? Did she call the CDC? Did she call the NIH? Was there any investigation into this condition?

4. The following link, easily found in a 30 second search on the internet, quotes a world renowned researcher, Dr. Alessio Fasano at the University of Maryland “"Apes, monkeys and chimpanzees rarely develop autoimmune disorders…” – so why was the zoo veterinarian convinced that what Louie had developed was indeed an AID?

http://www.physorg.com/news171565111.html

5. Was there an environmental trigger at the zoo that, if Louie had been born with this condition would have triggered his response? We find it very coincidental that this same zoo, in the past three years, has had three infants die, and now 7 year old Louie die. Chimps are very hearty, durable animals. Louie had maybe had two colds in his whole life before he got to Little Rock. He had a great appetite, was as strong as an ox, and in this picture taken at the zoo in June (found on Flickr by us last month) he looks pretty good – maybe even a little heavy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30866950@N07/5915794195/sizes/o/in/photostream/

6. Lastly – we have asked the USDA to investigate the treatment and care that Louie received from the zoo in the past several months. Now we know by reading this blog that this poorly run governmental agency has had its own disagreements with Judie and I – but we must try to find a way within ourselves to trust the system to do the right things and investigate his death the right way. We promise to keep you readers informed of the progress of things from here on out, and we are going to be working on a tribute site to Louie where readers will be able to see many pictures of Louie, his media work, and some real good stories that we will share with you.

Thank you all for your readership

A chimpanzee that survives the physical and emotional trauma of capture can take years to recover

A new study, published in the International Journal of Primatology, examines 11 Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA) member facilities, predicting their carrying capacity for chimpanzees and provides a roadmap for long term resource, infrastructure and financial planning.

Lead author Lisa Faust, PhD a research biologist with Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo said, "The most sobering part of this study is realizing that most of these institutions already report being at capacity or close to capacity, and yet on average the group of sanctuaries are collectively faced with accepting 56 new chimpanzee arrivals every year, most of them under the age of two to three years old. Because chimpanzees are long-lived, this means that most of the sanctuaries will need to sustain or increase their current size, because they will continue to accept new arrivals as part of their commitment to chimpanzee welfare and law enforcement."

Chimpanzees are an endangered species, and while poaching is illegal it remains a major problem threatening their continued survival.
"PASA sanctuaries play a vital role in helping rescue and rehabilitate chimpanzees and other endangered primates, and that is our main objective," said Doug Cress, executive director of PASA. "But it's easy to get caught up in the day to day fight for survival and lose perspective. This study is so important because it allows us to step back and see where we'll be in the coming years and decades and to plan accordingly. Population modeling on this level is a wonderful tool."

A chimpanzee that survives the physical and emotional trauma of capture can take years to recover. But PASA member sanctuaries accept that long-term commitment, even if the only possible alternative to lifetime care -- reintroduction, the physical return of the chimpanzees back to the forest -- is a difficult and relatively new endeavor.

Chimpanzee reintroduction projects currently underway at PASA sanctuaries in Congo and Guinea have put more than 50 chimpanzees back into the wild, and three Cameroon sanctuaries are preparing to double that number through reintroduction programs in the next few years. But the cost, which can easily double a sanctuary's budget, is just one of the many obstacles to more widespread reintroduction.
Story Credit Here

Man caught for trying to smuggle a baby chimpanzee

Although great that they caught this guy before the baby chimp could be sold, the saddest part of this is that the mother was probably killed to get this baby and now this baby has no mom and mom doesn't have a life. All for the sake of money!!!!!! So sad... Just the thought that being rich over the compassion for the Primates makes me sick!!!! Hope he rots in jail forever because no doubt he took someone elses life.

Story;
Conservationists are calling for worldwide action to stop the growing trade in endangered primates being smuggled out of Africa by criminal gangs alongside drugs and arms, writes Asha Tanna.

The Pan-African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA) - a non-profit organisation that supports sanctuaries across the continent - says the situation is "critical" to all endangered species, because dollar for dollar it's more profitable than some drug trafficking.

"It's nothing small, these gangs are well organised and they're fast," said PASA's executive director, Doug Cress.

"From start to finish a deal can be done and the order delivered in less than a week. If they've already got away with loading drugs and automatic weapons onto an airplane, then to throw in leopard skins and crates stuffed with live baby chimpanzees - it's worth their while."

The man pictured here was investigated by the Last Great Ape Organisation (LAGA) - a wildlife law enforcement group - and jailed for three years for trying to smuggle a baby chimpanzee as well as four sacks of drugs containing 50kg of marijuana and cocaine in the back of his car out of Cameroon, en route to Nigeria.

According to conservationists, a baby gorilla can fetch up to £40,000 on the black-market.

Law enforcement agencies say they have identified certain trade routes through Africa which are being exploited because cross-border patrols are lax and the punishment for wildlife crime is lenient.

"Mobile phones and the internet have made it easy for people to communicate and they can create quite a grab bag of things," said Doug Cress.

"Prosecutions in parts of Africa...are difficult to uphold and some of these known traffickers are untouchable because they can bribe their way out of a situation."

"Prosecutions in parts of Africa...are difficult to uphold and some of these known traffickers are untouchable because they can bribe their way out of a situation."

Doug Cress PASA

PASA says endangered primates are usually pre-ordered from places like the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe where they end up either as exotic pets or put on show in zoos. The animals are increasingly being smuggled through Alexandria or Sharm El Sheik in Egypt - either from Cameroon via Nigeria or from Kenya via Sudan.

All endangered animals being trafficked are supposed to be protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Some crates seized by investigators have also revealed an increase in animal skins, ivory, rhino horns and various body parts for trophies.

Earlier this year, five people were arrested in Gabon, West Africa, following the largest confiscation of great ape body parts in the last ten years. The parts found included the head and hands of a gorilla, along with 12 chimpanzee heads and 30 chimpanzee hands.

Local African police, Interpol, LAGA and the World Customs Organization (WCO) have been working in conjunction with PASA to intercept wildlife smugglers to try to prosecute them.

Ofir Drori, director of LAGA said: "The problem conservation faces is corruption and it can be found in government officials, magistrates and police. That is the number one obstacle and we need to fight it.

"Bribing attempts are documented in 85 per cent of our field arrest operations, and 80 per cent of all court cases within the legal system. The only way to stop criminals, is to put them in jail.

"CITES is a tool that only works when there are collaborative governments. The problem is some governments don't want to follow the rules."

Following the recent political turmoil in Egypt, there's been no response from the authorities there to requests for comments on the smuggling allegations.

Lack of training

A spokesman for the WCO, Grant Bushby, said that many customs administrations in Africa suffered from a lack of awareness, training, equipment and inter-agency cooperation "which impacts negatively on effective enforcement at borders".

"Corruption too has paralysed enforcement efforts," he added.

PASA claims that Africa's ties with some international trading partners mean officials will look the other way at border checks; and say many of the illegal exchanges at African airports are done on the tarmac.

If criminals are successfully intercepted, conservationists say the animals are often confiscated and the offenders are allowed to walk away with just a warning. Those who do end up in jail will often receive a more lenient sentence for wildlife trafficking than for drugs or arms offences, so there's a temptation to re-offend.

PASA believes all chimpanzees and gorillas being smuggled out of Africa have been captured in the wild. It has written to CITES to investigate.

The head of enforcement for CITES, John Sellar said: "We are not sitting back and twiddling our thumbs. CITES has one officer to look at wildlife enforcement globally. Historically we have known that Egypt has traded in live primates and we have since worked very closely with the authorities to address this problem.

"The trade in great apes is very serious because of the detrimental impact to their populations; this is very much on our radar. If we find that a country is not complying we will issue sanctions to cease trading with them. Financially it has little significance, it's more international embarrassment. CITES is not a law enforcement agency, any hard evidence we receive is passed onto the authorities to investigate."

LAGA says it is starting to see some positive results, but preventing primate trafficking continues to be an on-going battle.

Asha Tanna is a British freelance journalist. She writes a conservation blog which focuses on all primate-related news and features.
Story and photo Credit Here

African Sanctuaries take in an average of 56 baby Chimpanzees a year!!!!

Every year throughout Africa, primate rescue centers are flooded with chimpanzee orphans, primarily victims of the bushmeat trade. When adults are killed for meat the surviving infants are often offered for sale as pets, and those that get confiscated by law enforcement are taken to sanctuaries for care.

A new study, published in the International Journal of Primatology, examines 11 Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA) member facilities, predicting their carrying capacity for chimpanzees and provides a roadmap for long term resource, infrastructure and financial planning.

Lead author Lisa Faust, PhD a research biologist with Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo said, "The most sobering part of this study is realizing that most of these institutions already report being at capacity or close to capacity, and yet on average the group of sanctuaries are collectively faced with accepting 56 new chimpanzee arrivals every year, most of them under the age of two to three years old. Because chimpanzees are long-lived, this means that most of the sanctuaries will need to sustain or increase their current size, because they will continue to accept new arrivals as part of their commitment to chimpanzee welfare and law enforcement."

Chimpanzees are an endangered species, and while poaching is illegal it remains a major problem threatening their continued survival.

"PASA sanctuaries play a vital role in helping rescue and rehabilitate chimpanzees and other endangered primates, and that is our main objective," said Doug Cress, executive director of PASA. "But it's easy to get caught up in the day to day fight for survival and lose perspective. This study is so important because it allows us to step back and see where we'll be in the coming years and decades and to plan accordingly. Population modeling on this level is a wonderful tool."

A chimpanzee that survives the physical and emotional trauma of capture can take years to recover. But PASA member sanctuaries accept that long-term commitment, even if the only possible alternative to lifetime care -- reintroduction, the physical return of the chimpanzees back to the forest -- is a difficult and relatively new endeavor.

Chimpanzee reintroduction projects currently underway at PASA sanctuaries in Congo and Guinea have put more than 50 chimpanzees back into the wild, and three Cameroon sanctuaries are preparing to double that number through reintroduction programs in the next few years. But the cost, which can easily double a sanctuary's budget, is just one of the many obstacles to more widespread reintroduction.

"Reintroducing primates is not simple," Cress explained. "Deforestation and poaching make many areas unsuitable for reintroduction, and human encroachment has resulted in communities living in many of the national parks and protected areas. Also, it can be difficult to build a social group of chimpanzees that is physically and emotionally strong enough to survive a reintroduction. That's why the number of released animals remains relatively small compared to the number of orphans in need of care. Lifetime care in sanctuaries is the most frequent option for orphaned primates."

Chimpanzees can live up to 50 -- 60 years, so the commitment for lifetime care is substantial.

The study analyzed historic demographic patterns and projected future population dynamics of these select sanctuaries which housed (at that time) 760 chimpanzees. The median age was 9 years old, with 76 percent of the population being less than 15 years.

Lincoln Park Zoo chimpanzee behavioral researcher Steve Ross, PhD, co-author on the research, explained that as chimpanzees age and reach sexual maturity, group dynamics shift, making social structure an important component for future management plans for PASA sanctuaries.

"Older chimpanzees can be subject to aggression and social disharmony, especially in large groups," he explained. "This could be further exacerbated by the influx of adolescents, so managing group sizes and dynamics will be crucial for these sanctuaries."

"We found there to be an exponential relationship between population size and resource need because groups sizes cannot grow indefinitely," explained Faust. "Our goal with this research is to provide PASA with a road map for the potential future management challenges they may face. It should help long-term planning and increase their ability to be stewards for the apes they take in and advocates for those they work to protect in the wild."

The Great Ape Trust in Iowa also contributed to this study.
Story Credit Here

HSUS Wants NIRC to halt potential government contract fraud

By: Humane Society of the United States

WASHINGTON (March 15, 2011) – The Humane Society of the United States has filed legal petitions with the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services Tuesday requesting investigations and legal actions to halt potential government contract fraud at the New Iberia Research Center, a primate laboratory located in New Iberia, La. and part of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

As outlined in the petitions, The HSUS has amassed public records suggesting that NIRC may be breeding federally-owned chimpanzees for use in invasive research in violation of the terms of a multi-million dollar grant agreement between NIRC and a division of the National Institutes of Health called the National Center for Research Resources. NIRC has received the grant annually since 2000, to the tune of more than $10 million.

"This appears to be an open and shut case of government fraud under the federal False Claims Act," said Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president and chief counsel for animal protection litigation at The HSUS. "The Attorney General should investigate this matter, terminate illegal breeding at NIRC, and take legal action to recover any taxpayer monies squandered by this facility."

Documents obtained by The HSUS demonstrate that during the past 10 years, NIRC has produced at least 123 infant chimpanzees, some of whom were prematurely and cruelly torn away from their mothers. The documents also show that an additional 14 infants died as a result of trauma by adult chimpanzees possibly due to negligent management practices and overcrowding at the NIRC facility. The surviving 123 chimpanzees may languish for the next 50 years or more in laboratories that are totally insufficient to meet their basic needs, while NIRC stands to profit from its breeding program by leasing the young chimpanzees for invasive research.

Evidence presented in the petition shows that by alleging extensive chimpanzee birth control practices and withholding information about young chimpanzees born at its facility, among other things, NIRC may have misrepresented its breeding program to the NCRR in grant progress reports and application materials. These misrepresentations could be violations of the federal False Claims Act, which could entitle the NCRR to recoup up to $30 million in damages due to the law's trebling, or tripling provision.

The HSUS is asking the Department of Justice to take enforcement action against the laboratory for fraudulent use of federal money, and is requesting that the Department of Health and Human Services cease funding the laboratory. The HSUS is also requesting that the Department of Health and Human Services immediately send all federally-owned chimpanzees residing at NIRC to permanent sanctuary with appropriate funding.

The full text of The HSUS's legal petition to the Department of Justice can be downloaded here. The full text of The HSUS's legal petition to the Department of Health and Human Services can be downloaded here. The necropsy reports of the 14 infants who died of traumatic injuries can be found here. B-roll is available to the media upon request.

Facts:
* There are approximately 1,000 chimpanzees in six laboratories in the United States; approximately 500 of these chimpanzees are owned by the federal government.

* Under the False Claims Act, the government can collect treble damages for fraud by government contractors, which means that NIRC could be required to pay $30 million for repeatedly violating its grant agreement with NCRR while certifying compliance with the breeding moratorium.

* The contract between NIRC and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, titled "Leasing of Chimpanzees for the Conduct of Research," is for a total of $7.8 million and is scheduled to end in September of next year, but is up for renewal this coming September.

* Each chimpanzee born into a laboratory can live 60 years and cost the federal government as much as $1 million during his or her lifetime. Seven of the 123 chimpanzees born at NIRC are now owned by, and are the responsibility of, the federal government.

* The HSUS revealed the results of an undercover investigation conducted at NIRC in 2009, including distress caused by lack of enrichment and socialization, severe psychological distress, and inadequate veterinary care.

* The National Institutes of Health has announced that the National Academy of Sciences will be conducting a review to the use of chimpanzees for research purposes, further strengthening the argument to immediately stop the flow of new chimpanzees into the laboratory system.

To learn more about chimps in research, visit Here.humanesociety.org/chimps
Story Credit Here

Chimpanzee meat is for sale in restaurants and market stalls in Britain

... it has emerged.

Trading standards officials uncovered the illegal bushmeat from the endangered species whilst testing samples believed to be seized from vendors in the Midlands.

The meat, which can cost more than £20 a kilogram, is part of a lucrative black market trade that experts describe as ‘rife’ in Europe.

Last year, the first research on the import of bushmeat into Europe found over 270 tonnes passing through the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris alone.

Illegal bushmeat: The chimpanzee meat, which can cost more than £20 a kilogram, is part of a lucrative black market trade

The chimpanzee meat is understood to have been discovered following raids by trading standards in the Midlands.

A Government whistleblower revealed: ‘It is well known this practice is underway in the region but I was shocked to discover the meat that was tested was once a chimpanzee.

‘Dubious meat is often tested, and has turned out to be things like rats and vermin in the past – but chimpanzee is unbelievable.’

It is not known how the bushmeat arrived in the Midlands, but experts believe it was probably flown into the country from Africa, possibly concealed in personal luggage.

Dr Marcus Rowcliffe, research fellow at the Zoological Society of London and an expert on the trade, said at least five tonnes of bushmeat arrives in Europe every week to be distributed across the continent.

He said: ‘I’m not at all surprised that bushmeat is on sale in the Midlands because we know the trade is going on in the UK and that there is a regular flow of smuggled meat into the country.
Story Credit hereChimpanzee Meat

Have you ever heard of the Bili Ape?

Bili Ape, also Bondo Mystery Ape, is the name given to a large primate that inhabits Bili Forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[1]

A juvenile Bili ape in the Gangu Forest (photo by Cleve Hicks).

"The apes nest on the ground like gorillas but have a diet and features characteristic of chimpanzees," according to a National Geographic report.[2] While preliminary genetic testing with non-nuclear DNA indicate a close relationship with the Eastern Chimpanzee Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii subspecies of the Common Chimpanzee,[3][4] a range of behaviors that are more closely related to those of gorillas have greatly intrigued primatologists from around the globe. The mixture of traits has led to questions of taxonomic classification
Information found here

New Article:

March 26 - 29, 2001 -- Listen to Morning Edition, March 26, 2001, for the latest National Geographic Radio Expeditions based on NPR’s Alex Chadwick's visit to Central Congo and the search for the Bili ape.
Researchers have long wondered about a large primate skull found a century ago in the northern Congo. Gorillas have never been reported in this region. But there are stories of very large apes -- and recent evidence suggests that something unknown may be there.

Intrigued by the possible existence of a new species of ape -- news that would rock the world of science -- some of the most renowned ape researchers in the world agreed to undertake an expedition to the Bili forest.

The area falls within the highly unstable Democratic republic of Congo, the former Zaire. Two rebel armies are fighting the central government in Kinshasa, and only a week before the expedition was scheduled to begin in January, Congo leader Laurent Kabila was assassinated. The Bili forest research site is hundreds of miles behind rebel lines; there is little civil authority; roads and communications are poor; there is no medical care. No scientists are known to have explored the area.

Day One - Listen as Radio Expeditions begins the search for the Bili Ape at a dirt airstrip in Arua, Uganda, where a small plane is refueling before flying on to the Congo. On board are two scientists -- Dr. Richard Wrangham of Harvard University and the Leakey Foundation, and Dr. Christophe Boesch of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. Wrangham and Boesch explain both their interest in and skepticism about the puzzling reports from Bili. The two scientists are skilled explorers with many years experience studying and following chimpanzees in the wild. They will need those skills in the days ahead, when they will camp in the forest with the Radio Expeditions team, trying to locate the elusive Bili Ape.

Day Two -- On a rutted road through the Congo forest, Radio Expeditions stops with the researchers to ask local villagers about the Bili apes. They say they know about a large ape, but pictures of gorillas don’t look familiar to them. It's a clue that perhaps the animal we’re looking for is either a large chimpanzee or possibly a new species. Listen as NPR's Alex Chadwick talks to expedition leader Karl Amman about some of the evidence that’s lured the biologists here -- including a plaster cast made near here a few weeks ago of a very large ape footprint. These are the forests of old Africa and there are things in them that are still unknown.

Day Three -- Listen as Alex follows two other scientists into the forest -- Esteban Sarmiento of the American Museum of Natural History and George Schaller of the Wildlife Conservation Society. In a day of exploring, we find a nest that may suggest the presence of gorillas, but other evidence that leans toward chimps. We also find lion tracks, ape feeding sites, and a forest of sights and sounds that are thrilling even without a mysterious ape.

Day Four -- Listen as Alex joins Christophe Boesch on an early morning trek to a distant forest site to try to find chimps. Boesch explains his technique for locating the animals and the very real crisis that confronts apes in the wild everywhere: Their homeland is being turned into farm tracts and they are being hunted for food. Ape numbers are in sharp decline, and scientists are trying to find new populations that can be protected.

Richard Wrangham introduces us to an investigative technique that is -- challenging. We wash ape feces to learn what the animals eat. Wrangham is able to conclude that the Bili ape is not a gorilla, but rather a chimp. Karl Amman plans to keep trackers in the forest to continue looking for the elusive animals that he still believes may be a new chimp. But the other scientists agree with Wrangham that the Bili ape is in all likelihood a chimpanzee. Says Christophe Boesch, that is enough. For us, the chimp is still a mystery.
Information Found Here

New Article:
Until very recently the possibility of an unknown form of great ape existing in some remote region of darkest Africa, yet still eluding scientific recognition, seemed ludicrous — but not any more. Thanks to some extraordinary discoveries, this remarkable prospect may soon be formally confirmed. Indeed, in stark (but also much-welcomed) contrast to the all-too-familiar cryptozoological scenario whereby reports of a mysterious creature are followed by searches that singularly fail to obtain tangible proof of its existence, the evidence collected in support of the Bali ape's reality is so plentiful and diverse as to be positively embarrassing — bearing in mind that its identity has still not been resolved.

This curious saga began over a century ago, when, in 1898, a Belgian army officer returned home from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo with some gorilla skulls he had obtained near the village of Bili, on the Uele River in northern Congo's Bondo area — even though no other gorillas had been found within hundreds of miles of Bili before (or since). He donated them to Belgium's Congo Museum in Tervueren, where in due course they were examined by its curator, Henri Schouteden. He was sufficiently struck by their anatomical differences from other gorilla skulls as well as by their unique provenance (roughly halfway between the extreme edges of the western and eastern distribution of any gorilla populations) to classify them as a new subspecies of gorilla, which he dubbed Gorilla gorilla uellensis.

The video footage appears to show a female "mystery ape" with a baby.Less convinced of their separate taxonomic status was mammalogist Dr Colin Groves, whose examination of these skulls in 1970 led him to announce that they were indistinguishable from western lowland gorillas. Thereafter, the Bili ape sank back into obscurity — until 1996, when Kenyan-based conservationist and wildlife photographer Karl Ammann, intrigued by its strange history and apparent disappearance, set out on the first of several Congolese quests to rediscover this mysterious primate.

And rediscover it he did, bringing back such compelling evidence for its presence that several other notable investigators launched their own searches, and returned with equally fascinating clues concerning the Bili ape's nature. Such researchers included primatologist Dr Shelly Williams from Maryland's Jane Goodall Institute, Dr Richard Wrangham from the Leakey Foundation, Dr Christophe Boesch frem Leipzig's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Dr Esteban Sarmiento from New York's American Museum of Natural History and Dr George Schaller from New York's Wildlife Conservation Society.

Large and elaborate ground nests located in riverbeds are only found north of the Uele River.What makes their various finds so especially interesting is the ambivalent identity that they collectively yield for the Bili ape — because, uniquely, it deftly yet bemusingly combines characteristics of gorillas with those of chimpanzees, creating a shadowy anthropoid that is at once both yet neither. For instance: if the Bili ape is a chimpanzee, it is a veritable giant, because videos of living specimens and photographs of dead ones suggest a height of 5-6ft (1.5-1.8m) — a mighty stature supported by the discovery of enormous footprints, some measuring almost l4in (36cm) long, and therefore nearly 2in (5cm) longer even than those of the mountain gorilla! Also, very large ground nests constructed by Bili apes have been found that compare with those created by gorillas; normal chimps build smaller, tree-borne nests. Further evidence of the Bili ape's great size comes from local Bondo hunters, who distinguish two distinct apes — 'tree-beaters' (normal chimps) and 'lion-killers' (the Bili apes). The latter earn their name from their combined size and ferocity, a mix potent enough to ensure their terrestrial safety even in a jungle profusely populated by lions and leopards. Indeed, so unafraid of these great cats are the Bili apes that they hoot loudly when the moon rises and sets — an activity unknown among normal, smaller chimps, which avoid doing so in case they attract predators.

Equally noteworthy is the presence of a pronounced sagittal crest running along the top of one of the original skulls collected by the Belgian army officer and also on a Bili ape skull found by Ammann in 1996 — because this crest, normally an indication of powerful jaws as the jaw muscles are attached to it, is characteristic of gorillas, not of chimps. Conversely, the facial anatomy of the Bili skulls is decidedly chimp-like, not gorilla-like. In addition, hair samples taken from Bili ape ground nests have been shown to contain mitochondrial DNA similar to that of chimps, and the fruit-rich contents of examined faecal droppings is again consistent with a chimp identity although, perplexingly, the droppings themselves outwardly resemble those of gorillas.

Karl Ammann found this crested skull during his initial survey in 1996. The sagittal crest is not normally seen in chimpanzees but is characteristic of the male gorilla.So what is the Bili ape — a gorilla-sized chimp (freak population?/new subspecies?/new species?), an aberrant form of gorilla (freak population?/new subspecies?/new species?) that has evolved certain chimp-like anatomical and behavioural characteristics, or even possibly a genuine chimpanzee-gorilla hybrid? No confirmed crossbreed of chimp and gorilla has ever been recorded, but the two species are sufficiently similar genetically to engender viable offspring. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down exclusively from the maternal parent, so if such interspecific matings are indeed occurring, they must involve female chimps and male gorillas, to explain why the mitochondrial DNA from the Bili ape samples is chimp-like.

Happily, however the mystery of the Bili ape's identity may soon be a mystery no longer. Since autumn 2003, full DNA analyses, including nuclear DNA (that will shed light on both the maternal and the paternal lineages of the Bili ape), have been taking place at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, under the auspices of conservation geneticist Dr Ed Louis, and involving DNA comparisons with gorillas, chimps, and also bonobos (pygmy chimps). Ultimately, however a body, or at least some tissue and blood samples, will be needed for absolute verification of the Bili ape's true nature. Until then, the primate world waits, and wonders, and the Bili ape continues to haunt the Congo's Bondo rainforests, cheerfully oblivious to the stunning fact that it may yet be unmasked as the most sensational zoological discovery of the past hundred years. Not so silly in Bili after all.

From: Fortean Times [FT187], September 2004.
Information found here
To see photos and videos please visit here

New Article:
Shelly Williams, 49, the world-renowned primatologist credited with gathering convincing evidence of a new species of great apes, a cryptid primate known to cryptozoologists as the Bili or Bondo ape, was shot in the back around 2:30 pm, on November 7, 2005. She apparently was the innocent victim of an unrelated drug shooting in Smyrna, Georgia.

Williams remained in critical condition in intensive care at Atlanta Medical Center. The bullet, which passed through her spinal cord, grazed the nerve before glancing off her liver and lodging in her diaphragm.

While police have some leads, no arrests had been made.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that "Williams is credited as the first scientist to identify a previously unknown group of large apes in the jungles of Central Africa. The animals, with characteristics of both gorillas and chimpanzees, were sighted by Williams in 2002 in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo."

A report about Williams’ discovery of the mysterious cryptids published in 2004 in the British magazine New Scientist said that if the apes are confirmed to be a new species of primate, it could be "one of the most important wildlife discoveries in decades." Her discovery was reported as one of the top stories in cryptozoology for 2004.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution summarized, in their long article on the shooting, Shelly Williams’s work on the Bili ape:

Williams captured the previously unknown apes on video during a visit to the Congo in 2002. She described her encounter with them in the New Scientist article.

"Four suddenly came rushing out of the bush towards me," she told the magazine. "If this had been a bluff charge, they would have been screaming to intimidate us. These guys were quiet. And they were huge. They were coming in for the kill. I was directly in front of them, and as soon as they saw my face, they stopped and disappeared."

In a January article in Time magazine, Williams defended her discovery against scientific critics who have discounted her methods.

"The unique characteristics they exhibit just don’t fit into the other groups of great apes," she told Time. The primates could be a new species, a new subspecies of chimpanzee or a hybrid of chimpanzee and gorilla, she said. "At the very least, we have a unique, isolated chimp culture that’s unlike any that’s been studied," she said.
Infrmation and photo credit here

In Mental Time Travel a Scrub Jay wins over a Chimpanzee

IN A memory contest between a chimpanzee and a bird, most of us would bet on the chimp. But if the bird in question were a scrub jay - and the task involved mental time travel - the chimp might just find itself outmatched.
Episodic memories combine what happened, when and where. They are an essential part of visualising a different time, and were thought to be uniquely human until Nicola Clayton at the University of Cambridge proved that western scrub jays have simple episodic memories - allowing them to track how long it takes for food they have stashed to rot.

Chimps can remember where they hid food, but it's not clear whether they can track the amount of time that has passed since a memory was formed. To investigate, Marusha Dekleva of Utrecht University in the Netherlands tested nine captive chimps on a task similar to the one Clayton used with scrub jays. She showed each chimp four containers: two were empty; one contained either apple sauce or yoghurt, which the chimps like; and one held red peppers, which they like less.

Dekleva let the chimps pick a food container either 15 minutes, 1 hour or 5 hours later. But there was a twist: the apple sauce disappeared by the 1-hour mark, leaving the container empty, and by the 5-hour mark the yoghurt had gone, but the peppers were still available. Chimps are good learners and were expected to adjust their choice of containers over time.

They didn't. Instead, they remembered which containers held more food early in the study, and picked those no matter how much time had passed. This got them some food, but far less than they could have obtained by adapting their behaviour (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016593).

If chimps genuinely lack episodic memories, our ancestors must have evolved them after we diverged from chimps. "Episodic memory is linked to the ability to plan for future events and it could well be that this prospective ability gave humans advantages," says Dekleva.

In fairness to chimps, they may claim mitigating circumstances. As Daniel Povinelli at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette points out, chimps do not habitually store food as scrub jays do. He says they might have done better if asked to learn when different plants yield fruit - a point which Dekleva concedes. For now at least, the jury is still out on whether chimps can travel through time in their heads.
Story Credit Here

Backstreet Midland Restaurants have Chimpanzee Meat on their Menus

BACKSTREET Midland restaurants and market stalls are selling chimpanzee meat, the Sunday Mercury can reveal.
The sickening trade in bush meat has been exposed by a Government whistleblower, who says the chimp flesh was identified after it was seized by trading standards officials.

He told the Sunday Mercury: “It is well known this practice is underway in the region but I was shocked to discover the meat that was tested was once a chimpanzee.

“Dubious meat is often tested, and has turned out to be things like rats and vermin in the past – but chimpanzee is unbelievable.”
The chimp meat is understood to have been discovered after raids by trading standards in the Midlands.

The startling claims were last night backed up by British bush meat experts who outlined the shocking scale of the worldwide trade in dead wild animals, which stretches from Africa to the UK.

Dr Marcus Rowcliffe, research fellow at the Zoological Society of London, is an expert on the bush meat trade in Africa.

He recently completed an in-depth study into the smuggling of it through Charles de Gaulle airport in France, the hub of the trade in Europe.

It revealed that about 270 tonnes of illegal bush meat may be passing through the busy airport each year and out into the rest of the continent and UK.

Dr Rowcliffe said: “I’m not at all surprised that bush meat is on sale in the Midlands because we know the trade is going on in the UK and that there is a regular flow of smuggled meat into the country.

“However, it is not often that chimpanzee is found as that is rare even in the markets of Africa, so I am surprised by that.

“When we carried out our study at Charles de Gaulle airport, we estimated that five tonnes a week was coming into Europe and then being distributed across the continent by traders in Paris.

“Obviously I believe less than five tonnes a week makes it into the UK, but there is still a significant amount that is brought in and customs officials are very aware of it.

“What we do not know is exactly how it is distributed once it gets to the UK.

‘‘But from our work in France we discovered that the smugglers do not make much effort to disguise the bush meat, and quite openly take their chances trying to get into the country by bringing it in their suitcases.

“One man we found had nothing in his suitcase other than 50kg of bush meat.

“It is not on par with something like the drugs trade but there is clearly money to be made out of smuggling it and we know that it is associated with other underground activities.”

Bush meat is from wild animals hunted in places such as the tropical forests of West and Central Africa and is a tradition dating back centuries.
According to the Born Free foundation, nearly 7,500 tonnes of illegal meat products enter Britain every year.

Some is bush meat, brought in disguised as other meat products such as beef or lamb.

Once in the UK, more than half of the illegal meat is distributed through wholesalers or sold at local street markets.

The trade in bush meat has become big business and although accurate figures are difficult to come by it is estimated that overall the international trade in wild animal products has a value of more than £2.5 billion.

It has been claimed that a 4kg monkey would cost around £85 from smugglers in France, whereas the price would be as little as £4 in Africa.

But although some hunters target gorillas, chimpanzees and other primate species, great apes constitute less than one per cent of bush meat from all species sold on the market.

Dr Rowcliffe pointed out that the bush meat products were not just imported for consumption but also for medicinal purposes or as status symbols, signifying luxury and wealth.

But he warned that imported meat could be carrying infectious diseases such as foot-and-mouth, anthrax, the Ebola virus, TB or cholera.
The bush meat trade has also had a devastating impact on the numbers of primates living in the wild.

Adina Farmaner, Executive Director of the Jane Goodall Institute UK, said: “It is a reality that bush meat is being sold on the streets of Britain and I am not surprised that is available in the Midlands.

“From my own experience of Brixton market in London all you have to do is ask for some ‘special meat’ for a ‘special ceremony’ and you will get what you are looking for.

“The bush meat trade is a huge problem in certain parts of Africa and is one of the main reasons the population in the wild has been reduced from approximately one million about 50 years ago, to just a few hundred thousand today.”

Story Crefit Here

Chimpanzees produce more sperm that any other Ape

Chimpanzees produce 200 times more sperm than gorillas, the world's largest primates, and 14 times more than orangutans, scientists based in Japan reveal.

Promiscuous ape species have bigger testicles, and the latest discovery finally provides evidence that they also produce more sperm.

Scientists previously proposed that chimps have large testicles because several males mate with a single female, and so have to produce more sperm in order to compete.

Our data indicated that a chimpanzee usually produces about two hundred times more sperm than a gorilla
Hideko Fujii-Hanamoto

For their research, published in the American Journal of Primatology, scientists studied chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas from zoos in Japan and Indonesia.

Analysing samples of testicular tissues at a microscopic level, researchers found remarkable variation between the apes.

They found that the sperm-producing tissue lining gorillas' testes was much thinner than that of orangutans and chimpanzees.

Chimpanzees were found to produce 14 times more sperm than orangutans and even more than the world's largest primates.

"Our data indicated that a chimpanzee usually produces about two hundred times more sperm than a gorilla," explained researcher Hideko Fujii-Hanamoto.
For these three species of ape, the scientists have now proven that testes size is proportionate to sperm production.
The researchers claim that these findings also support theories that sperm production relates directly to reproductive competition and mating behaviour.

Previous studies proposed that testes are smaller in polygynous species such as gorillas where one alpha male monopolises mating with multiple females.
In promiscuous species such as chimps however, there is greater competition between males as several copulate with one female.

APE SEX FACTS

Dominant gorillas are known as "silverbacks" because their coats change colour to highlight their status as alpha male

Adult male orangutans develop facial flanges and issue long calls to attract females

This competition is thought to be the driving factor for sperm production and larger testes are thought to produce more sperm.

However, practical limitations meant sperm production in apes was difficult to accurately measure.

"It is generally difficult to get semen from the animals even if they [are] kept in zoological gardens," said Ms Fujii-Hanamoto.

"Therefore, the testis weight or the ratio of testis weight [to] body weight was used to estimate the ability of sperm production."

Visual observations confirmed that chimpanzees have larger testes compared to their body size than gorillas but it was not clear whether they actually produced more sperm.
Story Credit Here

What happened to the little chimp that mom mourned over

The infant had been observed behaving sickly ever since birth when, on May 18, 2010, researchers saw the chimpanzee mother, Masya, carrying the dead body of her offspring. Masya continued to carry her lifeless child until the following day when observers were present to record what they saw next. The infant was placed in a clearing while Masya sat a short distance away staring at the motionless form. Researchers recorded over the next hour as the mother approached her offspring 23 times to place her hands on the child. 21 of these contacts were directed toward her offspring’s face or neck. At the end of this display Masya once again picked up her infant and carried her to the center of the social group about 20 meters away. When she laid her infant down the other group members, eight in total, proceeded to gently touch, stroke the dead infants belly, and groom it with straw. After about twenty minutes Masya retrieved the body and walked off. The next day Masya was observed on her own, she had let go of her dead child.

This is not the first time that primates have been observed to pay special attention to a deceased member of their group. In April last year similar behaviors were observed by a chimpanzee mother in Bossou, Guinea who ended up carrying her infant’s body for a total of 27 days. The mother, Jire, regularly groomed and slept next to her infant’s body and showed distress whenever they became separated. In 2000 a chimpanzee mother in the Mahale Mountains of Tanzania carried her infants body for nearly four months and individuals throughout the community were heard making distinctive vocalizations that the researchers had come to associate with fear and agitation. Other cases have been observed in the mountain gorillas of Rwanda, baboons of Ethiopia, macaques in Japan, and ring-tailed lemurs of Madagascar.
Story Credit Here
Video here

Two Years Ago was the Horrible Charla Nash/ Sandra Herold/Travis the Chimp case

Feb. 16 will mark two years since Travis, the chimpanzee from North Stamford, viciously attacked the friend of his owner and was killed by a police officer.

On the day before that tragic anniversary, the state Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public hearing on a list of wild and exotic animals to be banned in the state.

If the DEP's list becomes law, you will not be allowed to own lions, bears or alligators in the state. Same goes for deer, striped skunks, raccoons, rattlesnakes or bats.

There are dozens of animals on the list. Some will not be popular with people who aren't satisfied with the idea of owning a cat or a dog.

But the DEP will do right to make the list as restrictive as it possibly can. That is not an emotional reaction to the horrors that Travis inflicted on Charla Nash. It simply is an acknowledgment that wild animals are not made to be pets. Not only is it potentially harmful to humans, it's bad for the animals.

Humans can form relationships with wild animals, no doubt. But there is no such thing as a domesticated wild animal. That's why a chimpanzee like Travis could fly into a murderous rage after years of -- mostly -- docile companionship.

Dogs and cats have become domesticated through a long evolutionary process. They were made to be our companions -- and they do an incredibly good job of it, too.

People who choose to take on the risk of owning a wild animal do not make that choice for themselves only. They put their neighbors in danger, and, as we saw with the Travis incident, the police officers who have to respond when things go wrong.

It's also unfair to the animals. They were not made for captivity, and most are not suited to this climate. If they escape, or are let go after the novelty wears off, they find themselves in an environment for which they are not suited, and often die cruel deaths.

Regardless of the breadth of the ban that does or does not get passed, to all prospective wild animal owners: Shelters in this state are literally overflowing with dogs and cats who need homes. If you think it would be cooler to own an iguana, trust us, a pound mutt has so much more to offer in the long run.
Story Credit Here

Help end Chimpanzee experiments by signing the petition, be their voice

The people tried to get this law passed after the Charla Nash/Sandra Herold/ Travis attack but it ended in the Senate, on environment and public works. It had 6 sponsors.

This is our time as a nation to stand up for our wonderful Chimpanzees and be their voice. "Stop torturing us", we don't deserve it!
Story;
Targeting: The U.S. Senate


Started by: PCRM Legislative Fund

Many chimpanzees have spent decades in laboratories. These laboratories are allowed to keep chimpanzees in cages the size of a kitchen table, deprive them of normal social interaction, and repeatedly subject them to invasive procedures. In addition, only 15 percent of chimpanzees living in laboratories are used in research. The other 85 percent are simply warehoused for potential future use.

The Great Ape Protection Act (S. 3694) would end invasive research on the more than 1,000 chimpanzees in U.S. laboratories. The bill would also release these federally owned chimpanzees to permanent sanctuaries where they would be allowed to live out their lives in peace.

Chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates are used in medical research because of the assumption that they are closest to humans in physiology. Yet nonhuman primates are profoundly different from humans at the genetic and molecular levels, where disease processes and treatment take place. As a result, chimpanzee research is not only inhumane, but also ineffective in finding cures for human disease.
Story Credit Here and to sign the petition

Fifty years ago Ham the Chimpanzee went up in space

Fifty years ago, there was a space race -- a race the United States was losing to the communists.
Enter a hero, named Ham. The chimp would become the first hominid launched into outer space. And Ham wasn't just a passenger. He was taught to push a button once the light for re-entry came on. His mission set the stage for the one Alan Shepard would make May 5, 1961, aboard Freedom 7.

Marvin Grunzke of Montgomery, once an Air Force aeromedical specialist, holds a photo of Ham, the first chimp to be launched into space. Grunzke helped train Ham. (David Bundy Advertiser)

Monday is the 50th anniversary of when Ham the "astrochimp" launched into suborbital space inside a Mercury capsule.

And the chimpanzee's trainer, Marvin Grunzke -- a retired Air Force colonel and Faulkner University professor -- will dis­cuss his work and experiences Monday at Dalraida United Methodist Church.

"Nobody had been in space, so nobody knew anything," Grunzke said.

But at the time, John F. Kennedy had became president, and announced that the country would make "space our project," said Grunzke, 87, "and that we're going to the moon.

"What was significant about it was, we had just sent a missile up that had difficul­ty carrying a basketball-sized space lobe," he said. "So our capability for space was pretty dramatic."

In October 1958, Grunzke and his wife, Eunice, lived at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Grunzke was working in an "unusual environments program," testing people and subjects in all types of environmental conditions.

One evening, Grunzke witnessed Sput­nik -- although he wasn't sure whether it was Sputnik, or Sputnik 2, which carried Laika, a Soviet space dog.

The dog became the first animal to or- bit the Earth and the first orbital death.

"They had enough missile pow­er to send that into space," Grunzke said. "And we didn't."

At that time -- the late 1950s -- there were only five people working in NASA, and they needed help. So the government approached the Air Force.

Grunzke was then an Air Force major and aeromedical specialist at Wright Patterson, and was request­ed by NASA to transfer to New Mex­ico to be a key trainer in the "ani­mals in space" program.

After Grunzke worked for a cou­ple of years to help develop training and data recording equipment and to train different animals, the chimp was selected and trained for space travel experimentation be­cause the chimpanzees share com­mon physical attributes with hu­mans.

But there wasn't enough power in the capsule to carry anything too heavy, so the chimp could not weigh more than 30 pounds.

It was an exciting time for Grunzke, whose design develop­ments -- including the chimp's chair, a restraint system, and even a pellet dispenser to hold treats -- took longer to complete than it did to train chimps, which only took a couple of weeks.

"They needed the chimps to have full movements, and only re­strained them at the knee and an­kles," Grunzke said. "We needed to assure the subject would respond, and reward them for good behavior.

"All of these things reflected the fact that we had to combine new technology and subjects new to us. We worked hard so we were able to stay ahead."

Grunzke said they developed two programs.

One, was a "continuous avoid­ance action" in which the chimp was required to continuously press the lever on a consistent basis.

"And they developed a nice schedule," he said. "They just sat there and kept pressing the lever. But another thing is ... we wanted to test to see if they had a good reflex response.

"So we developed another lever with a light over it, and it would come on in random intervals and the subject would have a quick time to respond. So they would be work­ing the right-hand lever on a con­tinuous basis and the left-hand le­ver would be on a single basis and (they) wouldn't respond to it except for when that light came on so we could test reaction times."

This helped researchers test their response time and their re­flexes. Both were important be­cause in both instances subjects were responding to avoid punish­ment. If needed, the punishment was saucer-type plates in the chimp's feet that would send a slight electric shock if needed.

They never failed.

"I don't have any regrets, be­cause I know that there were things we had to do," Grunzke said of the punishment possibility. "There were things we had to do for the be­havior to be maintained."

The researchers had to learn whether living things -- and even­tually a human being -- could han­dle the rigors of space, said Grunzke, a professor of physiologi­cal psychology and behavioral sta­tistics at Faulkner University for the past 15 years.

"We could see the subject was re­sponding, and working according­ly," he said.

At one point during the short mission, though, Ham experienced 16 forces of gravity -- now, astro­nauts experience only three to four forces of gravity.

"When you have that kind of force, we learned we could literally do this," Grunzke said. "It showed them that man could do this as well.

"Because of the similarity be­tween the chimp and the human, we could draw an extraction from that and show this could be a simi­lar situation for humans."

In the end, Ham's suborbital flight lasted 16 minutes and 39 sec­onds, and while the capsule he was in suffered a partial loss of pressure during the flight, Ham's space suit prevented him from suffering any harm.

"As a result of that, a kind of mis-programming of the Ham mis­sile, we were able to gain some very valuable information about what humans could or could not do un­der very adverse acceleration and deceleration issues," Grunzke said.

When first approached to help with the animal in space program, Grunzke was excited.

"If we stop to think about it, and you have to project yourself back to think about it -- (back then we didn't) even have the capability to send a grapefruit-sized (object) into space, and we were going to send animals into space," he said. "And they would be a precursor to man."

This was so exciting to Grunzke that he designed a program that demonstrated that animals could be trained to steer a missile.

"I did that because if we wanted to shoot a space flight to the moon, we would maybe have to steer the missile," he said. "The whole pur­pose was that we could steer a cap­sule into the atmosphere. The time­frame was such that we were just developing transistors. Everything that we did was on big relay racks" -- designed to program the sched­ules so he could switch and vary the schedule."

Grunzke considers himself gen­erously blessed.

"I always say I have been gener­ously blessed," Grunzke said. "There's not a whole lot that I did, but the Lord watched out for me.

"What we did was minimal things, but it opened the door."

After Grunzke worked for a cou­ple of years to help develop training and data recording equipment and to train different animals, the chimp was selected and trained for space travel experimentation be­cause the chimpanzees share com­mon physical attributes with hu­mans.
But there wasn't enough power in the capsule to carry anything too heavy, so the chimp could not weigh more than 30 pounds.

It was an exciting time for Grunzke, whose design develop­ments -- including the chimp's chair, a restraint system, and even a pellet dispenser to hold treats -- took longer to complete than it did to train chimps, which only took a couple of weeks.

"They needed the chimps to have full movements, and only re­strained them at the knee and an­kles," Grunzke said. "We needed to assure the subject would respond, and reward them for good behavior.

"All of these things reflected the fact that we had to combine new technology and subjects new to us. We worked hard so we were able to stay ahead."

Grunzke said they developed two programs.

One, was a "continuous avoid­ance action" in which the chimp was required to continuously press the lever on a consistent basis.

"And they developed a nice schedule," he said. "They just sat there and kept pressing the lever. But another thing is ... we wanted to test to see if they had a good reflex response.

"So we developed another lever with a light over it, and it would come on in random intervals and the subject would have a quick time to respond. So they would be work­ing the right-hand lever on a con­tinuous basis and the left-hand le­ver would be on a single basis and (they) wouldn't respond to it except for when that light came on so we could test reaction times."

This helped researchers test their response time and their re­flexes. Both were important be­cause in both instances subjects were responding to avoid punish­ment. If needed, the punishment was saucer-type plates in the chimp's feet that would send a slight electric shock if needed.

They never failed.

"I don't have any regrets, be­cause I know that there were things we had to do," Grunzke said of the punishment possibility. "There were things we had to do for the be­havior to be maintained."

The researchers had to learn whether living things -- and even­tually a human being -- could han­dle the rigors of space, said Grunzke, a professor of physiologi­cal psychology and behavioral sta­tistics at Faulkner University for the past 15 years.

"We could see the subject was re­sponding, and working according­ly," he said.

At one point during the short mission, though, Ham experienced 16 forces of gravity -- now, astro­nauts experience only three to four forces of gravity.

"When you have that kind of force, we learned we could literally do this," Grunzke said. "It showed them that man could do this as well.

"Because of the similarity be­tween the chimp and the human, we could draw an extraction from that and show this could be a simi­lar situation for humans."

In the end, Ham's suborbital flight lasted 16 minutes and 39 sec­onds, and while the capsule he was in suffered a partial loss of pressure during the flight, Ham's space suit prevented him from suffering any harm.

"As a result of that, a kind of mis-programming of the Ham mis­sile, we were able to gain some very valuable information about what humans could or could not do un­der very adverse acceleration and deceleration issues," Grunzke said.

When first approached to help with the animal in space program, Grunzke was excited.

"If we stop to think about it, and you have to project yourself back to think about it -- (back then we didn't) even have the capability to send a grapefruit-sized (object) into space, and we were going to send animals into space," he said. "And they would be a precursor to man."

This was so exciting to Grunzke that he designed a program that demonstrated that animals could be trained to steer a missile.

"I did that because if we wanted to shoot a space flight to the moon, we would maybe have to steer the missile," he said. "The whole pur­pose was that we could steer a cap­sule into the atmosphere. The time­frame was such that we were just developing transistors. Everything that we did was on big relay racks" -- designed to program the sched­ules so he could switch and vary the schedule."

Grunzke considers himself gen­erously blessed.

"I always say I have been gener­ously blessed," Grunzke said. "There's not a whole lot that I did, but the Lord watched out for me.

"What we did was minimal things, but it opened the door."

Story Credit Here and video

Blankets for the Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees love blankets. Most of the sanctuaries welcome blankets for their Chimpanzees as a donation. For those that know of me, and those that don't, I once made the mistake of owning 2 Chimpanzees, Mikey and Louie. While they were still very young I decided to place them so that they could be with others of their own kind. Last weekend we went to Garden Ridge and bought 32 blankets to send to where Mikey and Louie are for all of the Apes that they have. There are Garden Ridges in about every state. We only paid $3.00 a blanket! They are soft and large enough for the chimps to play with and snuggle with. Before we bought at Garden Ridge we would buy them from IKEA which also were only $3.00.

The picture above is at the UPS store after the blankets were packed. I believe the shipping for these were less than 40.00. As you can see it isn't expensive to help the Chimpanzees and to make them happy.

Pick your favorite Sanctuary and send them some blankets, it really does make you feel good.

Massacre of Apes and Exotic Animals in Gabon

Well, call me mean, but after reading this I would like to personally buy all of the heads of the men that did this and one finger and one toe from each of them. I'm willing to pay big bucks for them too!!!!!

Story;
Law enforcement officers in Gabon have arrested five men accused of possessing illegal animal products, including those of endangered species.

The raids, conducted by the country’s Water and Forest and Defense Ministries with the assistance of WWF partner AALF, yielded an alarming number of ape, leopard and elephant parts.
Among the items confiscated were the head and hands of an endangered gorilla, along with twelve chimpanzee heads and 30 chimpanzee hands. The skins of twelve leopards, a portion of lion skin, snake skins and five elephant tails were also discovered.
“WWF commends the Water and Forest Ministry and AALF for this important arrest,” said David Greer, WWF African Great Ape Manager. “However, the massive collection of protected species confiscated in this operation is highly disturbing. To my knowledge, there has not been a seizure of great ape body parts of this magnitude in Central Africa over the last ten years.”

AALF, known by the French acronym for Support for the Application of the Wildlife Act, is a joint program of Gabon’s Water and Forest Ministry with the organizations Conservation Justice and Brainforest. AALF assists local authorities with wildlife crime investigations and supports rigorous prosecutions. It follows a model established by the Last Great Ape Organization in Cameroon, which has been replicated with success in neighboring countries.

“The problem of illegal wildlife poaching and trade is not specific to Gabon, such specialized dealers exist throughout Western and Central Africa. But these arrests demonstrate that stopping them is possible with effective law enforcement,” said Luc Mathot, founder of Conservation Justice.

The suspects are being held in custody while an investigation is conducted. They are expected to appear in court for legal proceedings this week.

“Recent ivory poaching prosecutions prove that the judicial authorities in Gabon now regard wildlife cases with high importance. We hope they will do the same for ape and big cat cases such as this one,” Mathot said.

“This monumental arrest is only the first step toward catalyzing positive change in upholding wildlife law in Gabon. In order to establish a long-term deterrent to committing wildlife crime, appropriate consequences must be applied in this and all cases of illegal poaching and trade,” said Greer.
Story Credit Here

Chimpanzee's arm trapped in a mantrap for 5 days

On 10th January a team from CSWCT, JGI, UWA & Budongo Conservation Field Station,  rescued an adult male chimp that had been caught in a mantrap. Thanks to a tip off from a ten year old boy, the team was able to trail the group of chimps with the injured individual.After  laying in wait for two days the chimp was finally spotted in Mparangasi; a forest in Hoima. The chimp was darted, giving the team a chance to release his arm from the mantrap had he had carried  around for five days. As soon as he woke up, he retreated to a nearby shrub.

Story Credit Here
Wildlife Direct here

NIH has confirmed in writing that 186 Chimpanzees will not be moved

Alamogordo Chimpanzees Will Remain at Nonresearch Facility While Institute of Medicine Reviews Usefulness of Experiments

WASHINGTON—The National Institutes of Health has confirmed in a written statement that 186 chimpanzees at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico will not be moved this year to a Texas facility, where they would have been subjected to invasive experiments. The transfer is being put on hold as the Institute of Medicine conducts an in-depth review of the merits of chimpanzee experimentation.

Over the past six months, the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has worked alongside former Gov. Bill Richardson, Animal Protection of New Mexico, and others to urge the federal government to keep the chimpanzees permanently out of the laboratory.

The oldest chimpanzees at the Alamogordo Primate Facility will especially benefit from this reprieve. Flo, Guy, and James were born in 1957, 1959, and 1960, respectively, and they have not been used in experiments for about a decade. Rudy is relatively young, but he is very ill and at risk for sudden cardiac death. Heart disease is the most common cause of death for captive chimpanzees, and the heart disease affecting many of the Alamogordo chimpanzees is well documented.

“As the Institute of Medicine reviews the scientific literature, it will find that there are many problems with using chimpanzees for the study of human diseases,” says John J. Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C, senior medical and research adviser for PCRM. “Our closest living relatives are like us in many ways, particularly in their capacity for suffering, and yet different enough that infecting them with viruses does not adequately mimic human disease.”
In September, PCRM filed a federal complaint with Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, seeking to stop the planned transfer of the federally owned chimpanzees. The legal petition invoked the Chimpanzee Health Improvement Maintenance and Protection (CHIMP) Act, enacted to ensure that chimpanzees used in experiments for many years are retired to sanctuaries. Twelve authorities, including Dr. Pippin and renowned primatologists, co-signed the petition.

The doctors and scientists argued in their complaint, “Chimpanzees have repeatedly proved to be poor models for human disease research, including for HIV—a disease for which repeated failures have led most researchers to stop using chimpanzees—as well as for hepatitis, malaria, and cancer. Therefore, these animals are not necessary for this type of research. Superior alternatives are available and researchers continue to develop new, cutting-edge models for human disease research.”
Opposition to the chimpanzee experiments also came from Jane Goodall, Gene Hackman, actress Kristin Bauer, as well as scientists, doctors, and countless concerned citizens, including thousands of PCRM members.
Founded in 1985, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a nonprofit health organization that promotes preventive medicine, conducts clinical research, and encourages higher standards for ethics and effectiveness in research.
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Project R&R's work to help stop experimenting on Chimpanzees

2011 is off to a hopeful start for 186 chimpanzees at Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF), who have been granted a reprieve from transfer to a Texas laboratory for use in invasive research.

According to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) statement issued yesterday, the transfer will be delayed “pending an Institute of Medicine [the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences] in-depth analysis to reassess the scientific need for the continued use of chimpanzees….” The report is expected to take about two years.

NEAVS/Project R&R and other national groups, including Animal Protection of New Mexico, breathed a sigh of relief at this decision, which came after months of urging the NIH to keep the chimpanzees in New Mexico. APF, a holding facility, does not conduct experiments on the premises, and the individuals now housed there have been spared from research for the past 10 years. NIH’s plan to move them to the Southwest National Primate Research Center to be readily available for invasive research provoked national opposition, including from New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and other public figures.

Dr. Theodora Capaldo, NEAVS/Project R&R President, stated, “In the midst of national efforts to get all chimpanzees out of invasive research, this decision signals an important willingness on the part of our government to consider their policies toward chimpanzees in research at large.”

For chimpanzees like Flo, Danny, Heidi, Robbie, and the others at APF, the delay in the transfer is good fortune. Flo, the oldest chimpanzee at APF, is 53. According to Animal Protection of New Mexico, she has chronic weight loss, anemia, and cardiac arrhythmias. Flo gave birth to four children, all of whom were taken from her for research. All but one, Jojo — now 27 and also at APF — are dead.

While this halt to the transfer is promising, NEAVS/Project R&R will continue pressing NIH to permanently retire not only the Alamogordo chimpanzees but all those now held in labs. The Great Ape Protection Act, legislation which would end invasive chimpanzee research in the U.S. and release all federally-owned chimpanzees to sanctuary, had 161 cosponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives and six cosponsors in the Senate at the close of the 111th Congress.

NEAVS/Project R&R’s work, including reviews of chimpanzee use in human disease research, along with the work of millions of individuals and dozens of other animal protection groups and sanctuaries, is building steady progress for this legislation. Broad-based support for the bill comes from bipartisan legislative leadership and co-sponsorship, as well as animal protection groups, scientists, chimpanzee experts, celebrities, and the general public.
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To take action to help these Chimpanzees and to thank Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, for this wise and humane decision and to ask that NIH support the Great Ape Protection Act that is now before Congress. Here

Mother Chimpanzees will care around there dead babies for days on end

This has to be one of the sadest things I have seen and heard, because I years ago contibuted to the  loss of baby chimpanzees being taken away from their mothers. I was lead to believe that it was similar to taking a puppy from it's mother. I was so uneducated and unaware of the sadness it brings to everyone involved. Everyone being, the mother Chimpanzee, the baby, and the family of the humans that adopt these babies.

Connie Casey-Braun of the Missouri Primate Foundation (yeah right) does this all of the time. She sedates the mothers and then rips the clinging baby off of her screaming so she can make the money. You would think that someone that has been doing this for approx. 20 years would know the after effects of the mothers sorrow. In my opinion she does, she just DOESN'T care!

I am still trying to make up for my horrible mistake. Some day, I will be donating a lot of money to help the chimps and other Apes, but in the meantime, I will continue to educate other people so not only do they not make the same mistake I did, but also will lend a helping hand, even if it's a survey to find out your opinions on owning exotic animals.

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Death. Every philosopher has an opinion on it and very little do we know of it. I’m not talking about the situations where some young adult drinks themselves into alcohol poisoning and then gets revived—I’m talking about biting the dust, pushing up daisies, becoming a root inspector, kicking the bucket, taking a dirt nap, or whatever euphemism you fancy.

We all know primates die; no one argues that much. But there is also significant evidence showing primates experience an awareness and emotional response to death as well.

Koko and All Ball (Photo by: Koko.org)

Most famously, there is the example of Koko the western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) experiencing mourning symptoms after her pet kitten, All Ball, escaped from its cage and was hit by a car. Francine Patterson, Koko’s caretaker, reported that she believed Koko had made sounds similar to human sobbing and communicating her distress through American Sign Language with signs such as “Bad-sad-bad” and “Frown-cry-frown-sad” (Patterson 1987).
In a recently published article for the American Journal of Primatology, James Anderson (2010) suggests context has a significant part in how primates respond to death as well. Evidence from deaths of individual group members suggest different reactions; mortality events from causes such as predation versus illness and even characteristics like age, sex, and social status may seem to play a role in these responses.

A female chimpanzee with mummified infant on her back. (Photo by: D. Biro)

Compared to the situation with Koko, a captive gorilla; wild primates have also been recently recorded to display some mourning symptoms as well. For mothers with young infants that die, reactions can tend to have longer mourning symptoms. For example, two chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) mothers were found to transport their deceased infants for a prolonged period of time—68 and 19 days after death in the respective cases (Biro et al. 2010). In these situations, although the infants mummified, the mothers still treated them as living entities—swatting insects away and grooming them.

Morbidity events (which can become later mortality events) may draw emotional reactions from group members as well. Unlike chimpanzees, little evidence of compassion for group members is displayed in wild gelada baboons (Theropithecus gelada) (Fashing et al. 2010). In a situation where a mother (Tesla) was succumbing to a parasitic infection, conspecifics only peered back once at her and her infant (Tussock, who died a day later) before leaving the plateau to search for food. Days before her death, female group members allomothered Tussock as Tesla slowly trailed behind the group. It is unclear why these same females did not respond to the infant upon returning to the plateau; though, perhaps something to do with the costs of infants to females and can be burdensome to take on caring for an infant which is not biologically hers.

While it remains to be seen how much and in what specific circumstances the context and characteristics affect reaction, I know I’ll be looking forward to further research on this subject and the development of thanatological primatology, even if the deceased primates are “old, unnatural freaks.”
References
Anderson, J.R. (2010). A primatological perspective on death. American Journal of Primatology PMID: 21197638
Biro, D., Humle, T., Koops, K., Sousa, C., Hayashi, M., & Matsuzawa, T. (2010). Chimpanzee mothers at Bossou, Guinea carry the mummified remains of their dead infants. Current Biology, 20(8), R351-R352. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.02.031
Fashing, P.J., Nguyen, N., Barry, T.S., Goodale, C.B., Burke, R.J., Jones, S.C., Kerby, J.T., Lee, L.M., Nurmi, N.O., Venkataraman V.V. (2010). Death among geladas (Theropithecus gelada): a broader perspective on mummified infants and primate thanatology. American Journal of Primatology PMID: 21136522
Patterson, F. (1987). Koko’s Kitten. Scholastic, Inc. ISBN 0-590-44425-5
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