Residents Being Charged For Catching Monkeys

As reported by Sandeep Moudgal at deccanherald.com on October 2, 2009

A forest department decision to charge residents of Basavanagudi a fee for catching monkeys has made the people go bananas.

With no funds to attend to this monkey business, the forest department recently came up with a novel idea: residents of B P Wadia Road at Basavanagudi which, of late, has been bearing the brunt of a monkey menace, have to cough up Rs 20,000 each if they have to have a respite from simian trouble.

Venkatraman, a B P Wadia Road resident, said: “After I complained to the BBMP in June this year about the monkey menace in our locality, some forest officials and monkey-catchers were sent to do the job.” When a group of residents met a forest department official, they were allegedly asked to pay Rs 20,000 to the ‘contractors’ who would perform the job of trapping the troublesome primates.

Stunned by the proposition, Venkatraman filed a Right to Information (RTI) application with the forest department, seeking details on the decision to charge a fee to catch monkeys.

Addressed to the Chief Conservator of Forests, the application, filed on July 16, 2009, sought responses on the following questions:

Whether the Karnataka Municipality Act or any other rule authorised forest officials to charge a fee for catching monkeys in the city?

What was the total number of complaints on monkey menace the forest department had received in the past 12 months?

Since when have residents been asked to pay for such services and what was the total amount collected by the department in the past five years?

Source and Finale

Orangutan Babe and Mum are Both Doing Well

CLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer

Tua the Sumatran orangutan and her new baby are just fine. But it'll be days before zookeepers can get close enough to discover whether it's male or female.

By Tom Avril

Inquirer Staff Writer

Zookeepers peeked into the would-be mother's bedroom periodically to make sure all was OK. An obstetrician from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital was on call if needed.

But in the end, nature took its course with no human assistance.

Tua, the 16-year-old Sumatran orangutan at the Philadelphia Zoo, delivered a baby yesterday at 8 a.m.

The keepers are not getting too close for now, and the public won't get a look for at least a week. No one wants to interfere with the bond between mother and the zoo's first baby orang in 17 years. So the zoo doesn't know whether it's a boy or girl, and is waiting to decide on a name.

But Tua, a first-time mother, is engaging in proper maternal behavior and all seems well so far.

"She's got the baby kind of tucked in close to her," said Kim Lengel, a general curator at the zoo. "She's made a nest."

Sumatran orangutans are critically endangered, as much of their natural habitat on the Indonesian island of Sumatra has been cleared to make room for palm-tree plantations. Their numbers are down to just a few thousand in the wild.

The Sumatran orangutans in North American zoos - now numbering 83 with the new addition - would never be sent to Indonesia. But they are seen as ambassadors for educating people about their wild brethren, and they also serve as a living storehouse of genetic information.

The father of the Philadelphia Zoo's new little ape is named Sugriwa - Sugi for short - and he has not been in to see his offspring. In the wild, he would not be an active parent, but male orangs sometimes lend a hand in zoos.

"They really seem to enjoy it," said Lori Perkins, an orangutan expert and director of animal programs at Zoo Atlanta. "They really like to play with the kids."

Stuart Weiner, the Jefferson ob-gyn who was on call in case the birth took a difficult turn, said Tua was his first furry patient. He saw her twice during the eight-month pregnancy, once feeling her belly through the wire mesh that divides her from her human keepers.

"It was quite humbling," said Weiner, who felt he was in the presence of an intelligent being. "Tua has very meaningful eyes."

The orangutan's anatomy is very close to the human's, yet Weiner said he still studied up on the subject and consulted with the zoo's veterinarians. He would have been summoned only in the event of bleeding or other maternal distress, in case a C-section was necessary.

As it was, he didn't hear of the birth until several hours afterward. Keepers watched discreetly as Tua cleared mucus from the baby's nostrils. As happens in the wild, the mother also ate the placenta, Lengel said.

The next step for keepers is to make sure the baby learns to nurse. A good sign is that Tua has been cradling the newborn properly, shifting the baby around when it cries. Some first-time mothers are afraid of their offspring, said Perkins, who is in charge of the species-survival plan for orangutans at North American zoos.

"The fact that she responded perfectly right from the beginning," Perkins said, "gives me a really good feeling."

Source

The Cincinnati Zoo

Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is oddly named since the feature gardens are mostly small and unmemorable and do not make an impression upon most visitors beyond most other zoo facilities. The zoo is located in an area of rolling hills a few miles North of downtown and is well served by a bus route which links many of the local attractions and ends at the main entrance here. It is true that there is a great collection of rarely exhibited animals in mostly average and substandard enclosures, but the roomy and very pleasant grounds and extensive amount of exhibits help make up for this fact, and there are still very few depressing exhibits. The layout is probably the most haphazard one I can remember, although a basic loop path could be followed. Unrelated groups of habitats adjoin each other, and plenty of individual exhibits are marooned away from their geographic or zoological cousins. This is certainly a facility full of notable buildings, both good and bad. I won't attempt a blow by blow description as the exhibits are encountered, instead I will group types of exhibits together.

I'll describe visitor buildings first. The new entrance is a nice vaguely colonial tropical complex of buildings and landscape. An entrance building with escalator and elevator fronted by a plaza with a rhino sculpture is located in a new parking lot across the street. Once on the second level, a bridge crosses the street to the ticketing building and turnstile shelter, which leads to a rentals and restroom building, and a gift shop building whose interior is still being finished. The Natural Selections Cafe is a small outdoor cafe on another plaza. The complex is called Historic Vine Street Village. Oddly, it features a WiFi hotspot so one can Zoochat when one gets bored with the extensive zoo's offerings! This entry area creates a good tone compared to the organizational chaos to come. Another complex which I suspect was an older 1970s entrance is on the other side of the zoo, and leads to another parking lot and the Cheetah Encounter across it (which was closed that day). The complex has a gift shop building, cafe, offices, and botanical shadehouse area with matching ordinary woodsy buildings. More striking is a nearby curved wood beamed building with a swooping roofline that is the Family Zooshop, part of the small cramped Children's Zoo. Yet another area of the zoo is the Safari Camp, composed of better themed education buildings and event shelters on a sloping site adjoining other buildings for Safari Grill, 4-D Special FX Theater, and a carousel. The African theme is nice here, but the use of crossed spears above every sign and entry is overdone. Discovery Forest, which is a round glazed atrium that is part of an education center and only features a few exhibits in its two story space, including a toad, macaw, and sloth, is in another corner of the property and looks like a great facility with classrooms. It is not the inspiring indoor rainforest it appears to be from the outside, however.

Exhibits that are mostly in buildings is the next category, again they are scattered. Oldest is the small round turreted Reptile House, with a sadly small center alligator exhibit and a small collection of small wall herpetariums. This is the oldest zoo building in the country and should either be turned into an interpretive non-animal exhibit or bathrooms! Another old historic building is the exotically arched elephant house, with minarets punctuating its roofline. The interior was closed that day, but the two outdoor yards were open, one of which is naturalistic and larger with an amphitheater around a swimming pool and the other a small fenced yard. Four low buildings that appear to be plain 1970s structures that disappear into the trees and landscape include Nocturnal House, Wings of the World, World of the Insect, and Cat House. Nocturnal House is a small one room cavelike collection of about 6 dark exhibits, the largest of which features aardvarks, and is substandard. Wings of the World, which is adjoined by a decent outdoor lorikeet feeding aviary, is a themed collection of pleasant small to midsized aviaries, two of which are skylit tropical walkthroughs and three of which are underwater glazed views of Arctic and Antartic diving birds including penguins. World of the Insect is one of this zoos shining gems and certainly the best insect display I have seen. A winding exhibit path through abstract displays with excellent clear graphics show a wide impressive collection of insects as well as some related creatures, even a small naked mole rat colony which is interpreted as behaviorally related to some insects. Most impressive is a leaf cutter ant colony that travels continously between its home display and the leaf source display through hundreds of feet of clear acrylic tubes on opposite sides of the exhibit rooms. A nice skylit naturalistic walkthrough butterfly exhibit is also featured, and together the wow factor for this complex is great. An insect fan would find this building worth the price of zoo admission alone. The same could be said for feline fans in Cat House, if one could get past the size and confinement of most of the exhibits. A round room is entered first, with multiple exhibits around its circumference, and then a curved path is followed through additional similar exhibits. Although the interiors are well themed and backdrops painted, the habitats are far too small and most lack outdoor access. Those that do have outdoor access have small rocky outcrops with ugly cages. Getting past this, the extensive rare collection and level of activity in such a concentrated space in the morning was electric, and I was inside alone! Displays with active animals that morning were caracal, fishing cat, fossa (non-cat), bat eared fox (non-cat), margay, sand cat, ocelot, serval, coati (non-cat), and snow leopard. There are some other exhibits too, so where else in the zoo world can the small carnivore fan see this? Manatee Springs is a more recent building (1990s?) that features several themed skylit alligator swamp habitats upon entering, and then leads to a darkly lit series of rooms with a decent manatee tank and several smaller florida fish tanks and education displays, not as successful as Columbus Zoos Manatee Coast in the same region.

Large animal outdoor exhibits are also scattered haphazardly, and most are average rocky walled yards and grottoes for a fairly extensive collection including Przewalskis horses, emus, takins, gorillas, lemurs, tigers, cheetahs, red pandas, Indian and black rhinos, bongos, zebras, okapis, black and spectacled and polar bears. A few of note include several rocky yards shaded by large columned awnings for the very rare Sumatran rhinos, a poorly detailed white lion fenced exhibit with an ugly wood platform stuck in the middle for lounging, and an even more unattractive plain fenced flat giraffe exhibit next to the back parking lot.

The last category of exhibits features only two that could be described as multispecies immersive exhibit complexes, one small and one large. The small one is Wolf Woods, which features a nicely themed woodsy complex of an education cabin, a viewing cabin for a well sized sloped Mexican wolf exhibit, a small thick billed parrot aviary, a walkthrough turkey and bird aviary, a river otter exhibit with viewing from three points including an underwater window, and a tiny open air skunk habitat. A decent rocky sealion pool and shore with underwater viewing adjoins these North American exhibits as does the small barnyard themed Childrens Zoo, so I'm not sure if the complex is considered part of the kids area or not but it is certainly reached through it. The larger immersive exhibit is a winner, called Jungle Trails, and features animals from both Asia and Africa. The Asian section is explored first, and the tone is set by exotic tree stumps and a rustic bridge as the trail descends down a wooded slope. This trail is compacted earth, not paved, and really sets this complex apart from the rest of the zoo as a wilder experience. An open small island is reached first, which currently has Diana monkeys (so much for the Asian first theme!), then an aviary with storks which is typical of the smaller outdoor exhibits with timber and wire enclosures. Then a large outdoor enclosure is reached with several viewpoints into a grassy and hilly orangutan and gibbon exhibit which is very nice. A low entrance to a dark indoor exhibit building for Asian animals is then encountered, filled with several small nocturnal exhibits as well as several primate exhibits including the bedroom area for the orangutans. A themed temple exhibit behind glass for lion tailed macaques represents much of the exotic detailing of the interior habitats, which extends into the visitor walkways in the dim environment. After exiting, the African section begins with a nice pond exhibit for painted storks and pelicans, followed by several primate enclosures including colobus. Then the large outdoor bonobo exhibit is viewed, similar to the orangutan. Also similar is the African animal building, with darkened themed visitor walks and bonobo bedroom and glazed primate exhibits as well as a tortoise and aviary exhibit in the jungle setting. This is an excellent immersive complex.

General adult admission is 13 dollars and is right on the money. Of the 45 zoos I have attended, I rank it at number 17 just below Denver Zoo and just above National Zoo in Washington DC. The only exhibit complex here to make my top 50 is Jungle Trails at number 22, just below Bronxs African Plains section and just above San Diegos Polar Bear Plunge. None of the individual exhibits makes my top lists however. I should note that if I had a seperate list for insect exhibits, World of the Insect would probably top it in every category except for butterfly exhibits, it really is superb. I have posted pictures in the gallery.

Source, Photographs, and Great Information

Dr. Thompson Speaks About Preserving The Bonobos

The Pickaway County Garden Club held a dinner meeting Sept. 8 at Henry Manor. Vice President Carol Bowling introduced Dr. Jo Thompson of Marion. Dr. Thompson is a graduate of Wittenberg University, holds a masters degree in anthropology from the University of Colorado and received her doctorate in anthropology and primatology from the University of Oxford in 1997. Dr. Thompson has dedicated her life to helping the bonobo, its environment and the local human inhabitants in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2006, she receive the Rolex Award for Enterprise which enabled her to continue her work. Dr. Thompson spoke about her conservation efforts and her ongoing work to preserve the bonobos.

Pat Knecht, president, welcomed members and guest, Joy Myers. President Bowling read the minutes in the absence of the secretary and Bonnie Koch, treasurer, gave her report. Bowling reported on the Salt Creek School project. Plans were made to work with the sixth grade to plant fall bulbs.

The next meeting will be Oct. 13 at the library. The program will be presented by the Master Gardeners.

Source

The Columbus Zoo

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is located in Powell, Ohio, 15 miles North of the downtown of the largest city in Ohio. It is not served by the bus system except for some infrequent daily trips during the summer, which is unfortunate for such a major attraction of the area. The zoo is justifiably admired and much of it has the feeling of a tasteful theme park, which is further reinforced by a seasonal water park and small ride park called Zoombezi Bay and Jungle Jacks Landing respectively. Both are entered from the central plaza located just after the turnstiles and set apart from the zoo by a good distance. Once inside the zoo, the visitor is never aware of the adjoining amusements, but they are certainly visible from the acres of parking lot. I didn't tour the parks, so I won't review them. The ticketing and turnstiles are a fairly new vaguely tropical facility surrounded by a round gift shop and rental buildings with a round logoed plaza on each side of the entrance, and this complex sets a nice tone for the great exhibits to come. Past a curved arched gateway, Conservation Lake comes into view, a large pleasant lake that centers this half of the zoo and from which several exhibit areas radiate. One side of it is dominated by several buildings which are perhaps 20 years old and I suspect were once the main entrance not long ago. These buildings are simply modern for their time and feature an education center, gift shop, activity pavilion, and covered show amphitheater. The lake itself contains no exhibits, but an African lion exhibit is nearby and is a weak complex of two wood and wire habitats with wood viewing decks and a central elevated viewing pavilion. This exhibit is not only seperated from the rest of the African exhibits, but is also directly adjacent to the city street and power lines which bisect the zoo property, and this is the only exhibit which is diminished by their prescence. Two far better and extensive exhibit complexes are the remaining areas of this side of the zoo and also are reached from the lakeshore.

North America is a long loop trail surrounding a hill, and what it lacks in detail it makes up for in an extensive collection. The loop exhibits are mostly wooded, with a large clearing where half the hillside is a nice yard for bison and pronghorn. Another large exhibit, this time with a marshy pond and boardwalk, is for moose. Wire fenced enclosures for black bear, grizzly bear, mexican wolf, gray wolf, mountain lion, and bobcat all feature rather ugly angled viewing windows framed by timber for short frontages, but are mostly roomy and shady. Greater detail is lavished on the small wolverine exhibit, which has an entire rustic themed cabin as its viewing area. Detail is also lavished on the prarie dog exhibit, with two arbored viewing areas on two sides of the colony and more detailed graphics, as well as a small Prairie Outpost food stand. The Ohio Wetland area features a sheltered walkway with a small river otter habitat on one side and stream exhibit on the other, both with underwater viewing windows. Adjoining is a medium bald eagle aviary and a larger walkthrough songbird aviary with more cabin theming, probably the most successful exhibit in the complex. The area also features some of the attractions appealing to children, which are spread out through the zoo rather than concentrated. One is the Huntington Train Ride, circling much of the North America complex. The other is Habitat Hollow, an excellent facility of a petting barnyard and pony ride and a simulated house which has several rooms of exhibits, some of which focus on the average home and its relationship to environment, and others that recreate and interpret various habitats with kid friendly play features. Adjacent to the area is the Polar Frontier, an exhibit area under construction which will feature polar and brown bears and arctic fox. I am not sure what part of North America will provide access to the new exhibits, but hopefully it will not disrupt the looping flow of the complex and will further improve this fine if uneven area.

The other loop trail is Asia Quest, and is my favorite exhibit complex at this zoo. It is mostly a newly built area, although it includes an older pachyderm building and yards. One yard is a standard one for African elephants, one a small yard for black rhinos, and another a large yard for Asian elephants which is integrated into the loop trail. The pachyderm building itself is a gargantuan edifice that is similar to a big box suburban store, with a simple rectangular plan and high partially skylit ceiling and a small visitor viewing area inside the entrance. This building lacks character but is roomier than most similar buildings. The rest of the exhibit complex is highly detailed and deserves a description as it is encountered along the trail. The unfortunate entrance gate is a larger than life cartoony stone arch with gargantuan claws at the bottom of the columns and teeth and a tongue above the arch. It is fun but sets a ridiculous tone which much of the rest of the complex does not deserve. Once on the other side, an exotic scenic landscape of a rocky waterfall backdrop adjoins a covered bridge with a habitat on each side. On one side is a series of simulated rice terraces which are part of a nicely sized rock walled yard for Manchurian cranes and tufted deer. The other side is a smaller streamside habitat for white naped cranes and Reeves muntjacs. On the other side of the bridge is the Extinction Bell which rings frequently to signal unnamed extinctions, and a nice netted exhibit with simulated arch ruins and tree trunks for silvered leaf langurs. The first of two exhibit buildings is then entered, this one called the Quest For Enlightenment Center, and the first part is largely educational and filled with the great graphics and cultural detail that the entire complex features. A series of tiger sculptures lines the entry, with species that are thought to be extinct having broken statues on their pedestals. A dragon sculpture presents a welcome to the complex. A series of simulated storefronts in an Himilayan marketplace creates a small presentation theater. Then the interior animal exhibits begin. One is a two story bedroom for sun bears themed to a palm oil plantation barn, and a window out to their rocky detailed outdoor exhibit. Then two small glazed and themed rooms feature a python and a water monitor. Then another of the exhibits annoying missteps...a glazed room for two species of fruit bats with a low wire ceiling skylit from above and plain graveled floor with lame looking scattered potted plants. This is an embarassing travesty for the exhibits designers, no matter what the high concept was. The building then ends with two themed indoor bedrooms for the previously viewed langurs, and an exit to the passage between the building and the older pachyderm building. The next part of the loop goes past the outdoor view of the sun bears, and then a large peninsula walkway that is surrounded by the large pool and grassy slopes of the Asian elephant exhibit. A red panda exhibit features several views into the nice rocky walled medium sized enclosure, and then a great walkthrough pheasant aviary with themed pagodas is entered. The final three exhibits all have interior sheltered views in the second of the complexs new buildings, a themed series of decorated rooms that simulate a Himalayan village. An impressive rocky multileveled markhor exhibit features a variety of climbing surfaces for these goats, although multiple wire barriers have been added to stop escapes! A glazed rocky habitat for Pallas cats is next, unfortunately with no outdoor yard, just the indoor view. Next is the interior view of the large and multilevel amur tiger exhibit, followed by the exterior view and finally a themed tent shelter with a stylized tiger sculpture.

From the far end of Conservation Lake, a tunnel goes under the street that passes through the property and emerges on the other side to a small area of older exhibits, including yards for flamingos, alligators, aldabra tortoises, and a claustrophobic humboldt penguin exhibit with underwater viewing. These exhibits surround the Reptile Building, a round series of mostly small wall herpatariums of average quality and a nice central room with fine graphics and models. Also nearby is an event theater and pavilions on the shore of the lake which the property abuts, and an historic carousel. All of this area is designated as Shores, and two nice exhibit buildings nearby are the main attractions and extend the theme. One is Discovery Reef, housed in a modern building, with a small tide pool, a small reef aquarium in a simulated submarine, and a larger and longer reef aquarium with some small sharks which is full of variety and activity and is viewed from a tiered seating area that runs its length. It is a nice facility but is not nearly as extensive as Henry Doorly Zoos Kingdom of the Seas, I'm not sure it warrants the entire zoo to add 'aquarium' to its title. Next door is a far more impressive building, Manatee Coast. Its modern curved roof architecture is entered under an overhang, and the scene changes to a highly detailed large skylit room that recreates Florida coast with mangroves and fishing shacks and piers and a beautiful sloping rocky underwater habitat for manatees as well as rays and fish that is fronted by curved viewing panels for visitors. Along its length, as the water habitat gets deeper, the visitor path also slopes down for deeper views. At the end is an education center and video theater before exiting. This certainly starts to warrant the 'aquarium' title further!

Another major exhibit complex on the lake side of the zoo is African Forest, whose many exhibits are more stongly themed with graphics and occasional buildings than some of the exhibits themselves. A large food court called Congo River Market and an entry education pavilion called Congo River Base Camp establish the theme with their large huts. Along the winding loop path are wooded boardwalks and viewing shelters looking at standard wood and wire enclosures for colobus monkeys, grey parrots, African forest birds, African leopards, and mandrills. Several pleasant wooded yards house okapi, bongo, and duikers. The large gorilla collection includes a visitor accessed round house with several indoor bedrooms filled with large branch structures, and a medium outdoor enclosure that the troops can rotate through. This outdoor enclosure is completely caged, consisting of several adjoining octagonal spaces with pavilion rooflines that is far too architectural even if the substrate itself is earth and grass, and is this facilitys weakest point. In contrast, the adjoining bonobo exhibit is a huge open habitat with rocky walls, a stream that tumbles down its slope, and multiple viewing windows around its circular layout. It is the greatest part of the complex and begs the question what did the gorillas do wrong?! However the bonobos get their own insult with a row of several smaller cagelike habitats for holding when not rotating through their wonderland. Finally, a nice red river hog exhibit with rocky walls adjoins the bonobos. Overall this complex is very nice but has a few blunders.

The final exhibit complex of this zoo is an uneven but fine two part area called Voyage to Australia and the Islands. Australia features three themed buildings and Kangaroo Station, a small walkthrough kangaroo exhibit. Lorikeet Garden is a structure that looks like a large garden greenhouse with only netting instead of glazing, containing many lorikeets for feeding. A small building houses the koala display behind glass. Finally, the most themed building is Bob and Evelyns Roadhouse, a dark exhibit area simulating an outback outpost with a front education room that recreates a dusty rusty diner in the Red Heart. Then the next room is a naturalistic nocturnal area called Forest Night Hike, with small enclosures mostly behind wire or glass for fishing cats, kiwis, palm civets, tree kangaroos, feather gliders, and a few others who definitely stretch the theme to the islands. The last room is a medium walk-in aviary that is brightly illuminated from an opaque ceiling above and mostly features island birds including pheasants. The Islands section refers to the islands of Southeast Asia, and it is the larger and stronger themed of the two areas. It is entirely outdoors and features multiple exotic viewing pavilions and a looping path with strong graphics and an abundance of cultural artifacts. The theme park aspect of this area is strong, especially since a slow moving flume boatride weaves under the walkways providing close views of some of the exhibits. A central exotic pavilion houses gibbons in a tall netted enclosure, with a siamang island surrounded by a scenic shallow waterway. An excellent Komodo dragon exhibit features a rocky and grassy yard with multiple levels as well as an indoor shack themed shelter with a viewing window. An excellent Asian otter exhibit is similar, with a pool and a cascading waterway. Small islands for cockatoos and a waterway for black swans adjoin the themed boatride loading shelter. Finally, a large enclosure for orangutans is here too, although the climbing structures set in the grassy slopes and the oddly painted jagged concrete backwall are too brutal and rather cartoony. However, this does not detract too much from the transportive adventurous feeling of the complex.

This is a fantastic zoo strengthened by its strong theming and organization, and at general adult admission of 12 dollars, it is 3 dollars underpriced. Its almost total lack of South American animals and exhibits makes it shy of a complete zoo, and its hoofstock collection is very minimal which usually takes my opinion down a notch. Despite this, I rank this zoo at my number 8 position in the 45 zoos I have visited, just below Busch Gardens Africa in Tampa (zoo sections rated only) and just above Taronga Zoo in Sydney. In my list of top 50 exhibit complexes, Asia Quest is number 20, Voyage to Australia and the Islands is number 25, and African Forest is number 33. In my list of top 25 individual small mammal exhibits, the Asian Otter Exhibit in Voyage to Australia and the Islands is number 3, and the same areas Komodo Dragon Exhibit is also number 3 in my top 15 individual reptile and amphibian exhibits. Manatee Coast gets my number 4 ranking in my top 15 for aquatic mammals. I have posted pictures in the gallery.

Source and Photographs

Gorilla, Josephine is Discovering Her New World After Eye Surgery

Miami MetroZoo tells us that Josephine, the gorilla who underwent eye surgery to remove two cataracts on Saturday, is "doing great." The aging gorilla was nearly blind before veterinary and medical specialists donated the surgery.

Ron Magill, the communications and media director for the zoo, described "one of the most magical, heartwarming moments I have ever experienced in my 30 years at the zoo" when Josephine emerged from her house:

"She came out for the first time yesterday and was amazed at everything around her that she hadn’t been able to see for such a long time," Magill said in an e-mail.

Magill took the photo at right.

"She was staring at a tiny twig in her hand with an amazed look as she began to rediscover her world! Just look at her eyes, how they are focused on the tiny twig. She appears to be in absolute awe! Thanks to the incredible work of a dedicated team, a new light has been turned on in this endangered gorilla’s life."

While rare, the procedure has been done before, at zoos in Dallas and Salt Lake City. Here's how the surgery was conducted, according to the Miami Herald:

From the moment that handlers zinged the three-foot-six Josephine with a tranquilizer dart until her return to her straw-lined night house, she lost three hours — and regained the vision of her youth.
Before surgery, she couldn't tell a cantaloupe from a cabbage. Now she'll have the primate equivalent of 20-20 vision, said Dr. Frank Spektor, the Kendall, Fla., ophthalmologist who adapted a procedure he performs 50 times a month to the needs of a gorilla.
With 32 years' experience, Spektor, 59, still finds every cataract case “a challenge, because it's always unpredictable, never routine.”
All the more so with the brown-eyed Josephine, given her bony facial structure and distinctive scent: urine and body odor, with a hint of gorilla breath.
Spektor and his team, which included zoo vet Dr. Christine Miller, Dr. Tim J. Cutler and Dr. Lorraine Karpinski — veterinary ophthalmologists who have done cataract surgery on dogs, cats, horses, even birds — had examined Josephine last month.
They found her in good health for an aging ape — the oldest captive gorilla lived to 55 — but nearly immobilized by her poor sight.
At 10:02, attendants hoisted the sleeping gorilla onto the operating table.
Spektor and Cutler scrubbed, draped Josephine with a plastic sheet, then went to work on her left eye.
Because the cataract was so thick and milky, the membrane covering it like plastic wrap wasn't easy to see. In a procedure more common with dogs than people, according to Cutler, they injected blue dye into the membrane for contrast.
That made it easier to cut a tiny round hole in the membrane through which they'd extract the cataract then insert the replacement lens.
A machine, operated by a foot pedal, injects fluid and ultrasound vibrations into the eye, emulsifying the cataract — “turns it into a milkshake,” Cutler said — then vacuums out the goo.
At 10:55, after inserting the lens then closing the hole with a single nylon suture, the doctors declared themselves done with the first eye.
They re-scrubbed, repeated the procedure on Josephine's right eye, and at 11:44 finally seemed to exhale.
“Perfect,” Cutler said. “Fantastic.”
“Exhilarating,” Spektor said, “and exhausting.”

Source

Chimp and Matthew Berry Make Predictions? Disgusting!

Coming this week in prime time, Queen Latifah will perform on the Tuesday results show of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars." She will sing "Ease on Down the Road" and "Fast Car." Also performing will be hip-hop sensation JabbaWockeeZ. The show airs at 9 p.m. Tuesday on WFTV-Channel 9. For comedy, "Dancing" alum Steve Wozniak, Fantasy Football expert Matthew Berry and a chimp make their predictions for the season. Yes, a chimp.

Source

Baboons Vs Chimpanzees – Bbc Wildlife

Chimpanzee and baboon monkeys fight in the African animal kingdom from the BBC wildlife team. An investigation into animal behaviour and welfare in the animal kingdom.

Video

Why Don't People Understand that Exotic Animals Don't Make Good Pets, Pet Bear Kills Owner

Perhaps this, and other, similar stories, will remind people that keeping a wild animal for a pet is not a good idea. On Sunday, Ross Township, PA resident Kelly Ann Walz, 37, was attacked and killed by her pet black bear.

Ross Township, PA authorities say Watz, who also had permits to own a Bengal tiger and an African lion, had entered the bear’s enclosure to clean the cage as well as feed the 350-lb bear. Walz had thrown some food to one side of the enclosure to distract the bear while she cleaned the other side, officials said. At some point, the bear turned an attacked her.

Initial reports indicate a neighbor shot and killed the bear during its attack on Walz. Ross Township, PA is about 20 miles northeast of Allentown.

Tim Conway, the game commission’s information educational supervisor for the northeast region said the bear had been kept as a pet since 2000 when the owners applied for a license for it. He stressed that no other Ross Township, PA residents were at risk during the attack. The bear did not escape and neither it nor any other animals were free-roaming.

Earlier this year, Travis the chimpanzee, who had been used in commercials and appeared on TV, attacked without warning Charla Nash, 55, of Stamford, CT, a friend, of his owner, Sandra Herold, 70. Police were forced to shoot the chimp when after the owner, unable to stop the attack, dialed 911. Travis the chimpanzee eventually died of his wounds.

Read our coverage of the pet "celebrity chimp" attack that occurred earlier this year.

Source

The Great Ape Trust Having Problems with Flooding

The danger of flooding has held up expansion of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa on Des Moines' southeast side, and officials are considering the possibility of moving some of the conservation group's research and orangutans to the Blank Park Zoo.

Officials from each organization confirmed Friday that they are in discussions to make ape trust facilities part of the zoo's roughly $40 million expansion plan.

In recent years the ape trust has had difficulty accommodating the high demand for public tours at the facility while maintaining the organization's focus on research. A presence at the zoo would increase public access to the orangutans and the scientists who study with them, officials said.

"Things are progressing in a positive way, and we're all trying to make it happen where we can keep those animals here in Des Moines," Blank Park Zoo CEO Mark Vukovich said.

A formal announcement could be made by the end of the month, he said.

The zoo has a four-phase expansion project planned. The final phase is the addition of an Asia exhibit. If an agreement with the ape trust is reached, the Asia exhibit would be completed first, Vukovich said.

A final price tag and location have not been determined, Vukovich said, but facilities to accommodate the orangutans and ape trust personnel could cost around $6 million.

"At this point in time with the state of the economy and government budgets in Iowa, I would hope the way to do it would be private" fund raising, Vukovich said.

A deal with the zoo could help ape trust officials advance plans to bring more apes to Iowa and expand research efforts. The historic floods of 2008 inundated the ape trust and covered most of the 230-acre campus.

Flood-prone conditions made prospective expansions at their location impractical, said Beth Dalbey, communications editor for the Great Ape Trust of Iowa.

The ape trust is responsible for 11 orangutans. Six live at the ape trust; five elsewhere.

"Right now, we cannot say definitively how many of those orangutans might move to the zoo," Dalbey said. "That's one of the details they're working out."

The trust, which opened in 2004, built bonobo and orangutan housing a foot above the 1993 flood level thinking that would prevent flood risks. Apes moved to higher parts of the buildings during the 2008 flood and were not harmed.

If zoo and ape trust officials are able to reach an agreement, it would mark the first major collaboration between the two education- and conservation-geared organizations.

"Everyone hopes we can find a way to keep those animals here where they can be observed, enjoyed and help keep the species alive," Vukovich said.

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Baby Orangutan, Born at The Philadelphia Zoo

Photo provided

Tua, shown here as a baby in a photo provided by the Philadelphia Zoo, has given birth to a baby orangutan of her own this morning, according to the zoo.

The Philadelphia Zoo announced in a statement this afternoon that Tua, its 16-year-old Sumatran orangutan, gave birth to a baby, the first orangutan born at its new PECO Primate Reserve.

The zoo reports that both mother and baby are doing well. Baby orangutans, according to the zoo, are essentially helpless, like human babies. Since the first 48 hours of the primate's life are most crucial, zoo staff are keeping a close eye on both mother and baby, who remain together.

No word from the zoo yet on when Tua and her baby will make their debut.
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Moko, Mr. Moke The talking Chimpanzee?, Robert Tormachin

Mr Moke was the stage name of a chimpanzee called 'Moko'. Mr Moke was claimed to be the worlds only talking chimpanzee and he may well have been at the height of his fame. He was definitely not the 'one and only' ever though. There was Johnny and Kokomo Jr to name just two. I have personally known a few that came pretty close to producing words but none quite sounded like human speech. Chimpanzees are very intelligent and are only hampered from actual 'speaking' by the restrictions of their anatomy. A slight deformation could actually aid such a phenomenon. Captive animals can definitely understand spoken English and have proven this time and again. Personally I have always talked to chimpanzees when I worked with them. Not ‘baby talk’, just normal chatter about nothing in particular and am convinced they understood more of what I said than they ever let on. They understood nothing of politics, cinema or tv programmes but they did understand much of what was said about their surroundings. They were definitely familiar with words like ‘lock’, slide, door, rain, give, no, ok, come, go, brush, floor and I could go on.

Why the name Moko? Well his first owner was one Robert Tormachin and he was a rather strange and mysterious character. He was apparently a US citizen but later searches of records were unable to turn up any information on him. Robert was definitely no stranger to the Pacific Ocean and may well have had an Antipodean connection. Moko is the Maori word for a facial tattoo. Moko was also the name of a circus monkey popularised in a 1952 childrens book. In fact Moko seems to have been quite popular as a ‘monkey’ name.

Moko the chimpanzee was very much a 'fairground' animal earning his owner a living on the TV show and nightclub circuit in the 1960's. He had a very limited vocabulary but was reputed to be able to say "Mama", "Goodbye" and “No” and was able to do a few other 'tricks'.

Mr Moke Postcard

The chimpanzee was originally purchased by Robert Tormachin from a Florida animal dealer when it was just six months old. The original purchase was profit motivated and shortly after Robert and Moko took an aircraft and flew to Papeete in Tahiti. Here Robert had every intention of displaying and using the little animal to make money during the Bastille Day celebrations and possibly even selling the little chimp. His plans went awry because along the way he became very attached to him.

Getting to Tahiti had been easy enough but returning to the US presented a legion of problems. He could not obtain the necessary paperwork to take the little chimp back to America. On July 18^th 1957 not to be outdone Robert managed to get passage on a 35 foot private yacht owned by a Canadian couple. This was the ‘Flying Walrus’ which was sailing for New Zealand via some other islands.

Henderson Island

The Henderson Island Incident is a maze of confusing stories

• On the 1,500 mile journey they encountered terrible weather and so Robert asked that he and Moko be put ashore on the 28^th July. This was on the uninhabited ‘Henderson Island’. The only thing they took with them was condensed milk for the little chimpanzee.
• According to his story Moko had been none too popular with the wife of the yacht owner and anchoring near Henderson island they had put Robert and the chimp ashore for a few days to cool off. They had then sailed away without him.
• There was the suggestion that Roberts parents had been shipwrecked on Henderson Island some time before and Robert had gone to seek evidence.
• Another theory suggested treasure.
• Robert at one point had said he was not telling anyone why he went there.
• He had claimed that he had never even heard of Henderson Island and yet there are stories to suggest that he had researched the place in some depth and had visited previously.

Whatever…he and Moko were left on the island and the ‘Flying Walrus’ sailed away.

Though the ‘Flying Walrus’ stopped in Pitcairn island only a casual mention was made of a crewman being left or ‘jumping ship’ at an island en route.

On September 7^th 1957 the MS Corinthic stopped at Pitcairn and made mention of seeing a man and child on Henderson island as they passed by. The ships captains excuse for not stopping was that he thought it was Pitcairn islanders or perhaps a scientist.

‘For forty days they lived alone together on the island subsisting on coconuts from the trees and fish caught around the island. Eventually they were able to hail a passing ship. The captain agreed to take Robert on board but refused to take the little chimpanzee. Robert would not leave Moko and so he and the chimpanzee were left once again to nature.’ This again seems to be a story, though may be true

News of their predicament somehow leaked out and reached the ears of native fishermen on Pitcairn Island some 165 miles away. They set out to collect Robert and Moko and take them home to Pitcairn. Robert claimed at the time to have been cast ashore and was not there by choice.

The truth is difficult to fathom because Robert was hardly in dire straits. He had a sturdy well stocked tent, 12 cases of tinned food, 1,000 rounds of ammunition, fishing rods, spear fishing equipment, radio, record player and records, traveller’s cheques, a 44 gallon drum of water and even some chickens. This certainly does not suggest abandonment or jumping ship.

On the 10^th September a radio message from the ‘Flying Walrus’ said that Robert had paid them to put him ashore on Henderson Island. Subsequent conversations with the owner showed that Robert had paid them to take him and leave him on Henderson Island. Why? We will never know. Robert had talked about writing a book but if he ever got round to it it is lying unpublished somewhere.

So Robert returned in the longboats to Pitcairn Island and, in spite of the distance it was an uneventful journey. There was great celebration because of the safe return of the boatmen but also because of Robert and Moko.

Pitcairn Island

This did not last long. Robert was 27 years old, fit and athletic. The close knit islanders did not take kindly to the attention being given to him by the girls of the island.

Sensing there was a problem the Governor of Fiji ordered that Robert must leave on the next available ship and if possible Moko must go too. If this was not possible then Moko should be destroyed. The islanders themselves did not like this idea because they knew how much Robert cared for Moko so they agreed to care for him for three months. If arrangements could not be made to remove him by that time then he would become property of Pitcairn and the islanders would decide his fate.

Here they faced the same maze of regulations they had faced in Tahiti. The authorities managed to persuade Robert to leave Moko behind by promising to sort the paperwork as soon as they could. Robert left the chimp and set sail for Panama. After waiting a while he realised that they were not being good to their word. Robert was worried about Moko but very short of funds so he stowed away on a ship heading towards Pitcairn.

Pitcairn refused the stowaway permission to disembark onto the island and so he had no choice but to carry on to New Zealand. This was not without a fight however because when Robert discovered that he was not to be allowed to disembark he went crazy and had to subdued with firehoses and locked into a hold till they were way out at sea again.

In New Zealand Robert was already quite famous due to his rumoured exploits. Here he gave several newspaper interviews and was misquoted by the ‘Auckland Herald’ so he sued them for £300. He was then able to pay off his stowaway fine and head on back to Pitcairn.

Reunited the pair headed back to the USA where they worked the circuits and appeared several times on TV for a few years. Business was good but not quite good enough and Robert was drawn by a ‘business deal’ which he reckoned would take him away to Tahiti for about a year. What the deal was is not recorded and whether it involved another trip to Henderson Island will remain a mystery.

So Moko was sold for $1,575 to the St. Louis Zoo by his owner, the 27 year old Robert Tormachin . Robert was worried about handing Moko on to just anybody whilst he was away and figured that the zoo would be the best place to care for him. The zoo had something of a reputation and had been presenting a Chimpanzee Show since 1925. The zoo renamed Moko and called him Mr. Moke.

On his return Robert was of the opinion that Moko was heart broken and requested that the zoo sell him back. Robert described his relationship with the animal to be that of 'father and son'. By this time the animal was popular with zoo staff and visitors alike and so they refused. On the dark night of December 21st 1959 Robert sneaked into the zoo and stole back Moko. It was not as if the Robert wanted to steal him because he was obviously very attached and so he left in the animals place a cheque for $1,000 and an IOU for $2000. In effect he as nearly doubling the money he had received from the zoo when he first sold him. Robert did not feel so much that he had stolen Mr Moke so much a bought him back.

The missing animal naturally made headlines and the story even appeared in Life Magazine. They allegedly headed for Mexico. During this missing period Mr Moke appeared in the Jerry Lewis movie 'The Bell Boy" which must have earned Robert a bit of money.

Mr Moke and Robert were eventually caught in Florida. Here they sought sanctuary and requested that governor of Florida speak out on their behalf. Sadly they got little sympathy. The lawyer for Robert Tormachin tried to argue the case by comparing it to the separation of a human child. It was suggested that the relationship between Robert and Moko was that of ‘Father and Son’, and this may well have been the case in reality. In this instance Roberts lawyer, John B. Orr of Miami, compared the situation to the ‘Hildy Ellis’ case where the law was bent to suit the situation.

Hildy Ellis was a Catholic child adopted by a Jewish couple. The case was so controversial; it was frequently in the press for several years.

John B. Orr also put forward the argument that there was no law in Missouri about stealing a Chimpanzee and it was not against the common law in Missouri to steal an inedible animal.

No-one could deny that the lawyer made supreme efforts on behalf of his client but sadly the defence failed and Mr Moke was boxed up and flown back to St. Louis Zoo in 1961. The unfortunate Robert was sentenced by a jury to four years in prison.

The little chimpanzee continued to perform in the zoo until 1965 when he was ten years old. A ten year old Chimpanzee is no longer small. Big, strong and unpredictable he was sensibly retired from performances. He died in the early 1970's after an illustrious career which included another escape. This time though he was alone and had to be sedated by a tranquiliser dart as he had bitten the zoo train driver in the interim.

Robert Tomarchin ended his days as a dog trainer on the Gold Coast of Australia. Many of his dogs he called Moko or Mr Moke.

Robert died on the 18^th of June 1995. He is buried in Allambe Memorial Park near Nerang, Australia.

If anyone passes that way please put a flower on his grave for me. Robert was definitely an odd character but I do believe he really loved that little chimpanzee.

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Orangutans Under Threat

Great Video

Baby Orangutan, Kalijon Has a New Orangutan Mother

By Julie Neemeyer Kansas City, MO - Kalijon, a wide-eyed baby orangutan with crazy red hair standing straight atop her head, was born on April 24 and hand-raised by humans for five months. Recently introduced to Jill, a 33 year old orangutan has warmly taken Kalijon as one of her own, holding her close to her chest, presenting her to Zoo keepers for feedings and being very attentive. Jill will be nurturing Kalijon on exhibit starting this weekend. On Saturday and Sunday, October 3 and 4, Jill and Kalijon will be exhibit in the orangutan sun room for public viewing from 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Then, the loving pair will be off exhibit during the week to get to know, Josie, Jill’s 7-year old daughter. If all goes as planned, the three-some will be back in the sun room doing as orangutans do again for the weekend, October 10 and 11 from 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Raising primates is a delicate, 24/7 process; Zoo keepers and other trained staff wore fur covered vests that Kalijon gripped as though it was her mother. She was fed formula every four hours or so, groomed and exercised daily. A carefully planned process kept her in close proximity with other orangutans to ignite the smells and sights of her soon to be family. As Kalijon grew, so did her curiosity; she was shown to Jill and the other orangutans; she shared enrichment items, and slowly, a relationship began. Jill’s motherly instincts gave way and her and Kalijon bonded. These bonds between orangutans are extremely important because much of their behavior is learned by watching, experiencing and examining. Jill will demonstrate her mom-skills to her older daughter Josie to prepare her for her own baby someday. Orangutans are the only Asian representative of the great apes. Although their range once extended throughout Southeast Asia, it is now found only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. The Kansas City Zoo’s Borneon Orangutans are a part of the Species Survival Program (SSP). The SSP's goal is to achieve self-sustaining populations of orangutans that can continue to serve as ambassadors for their wild counterparts and their habitat, as well as a resource for conservation education and research. Kansas City Zoo is open daily from 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. Regular Daily Admission is $10.50 for adults, $9.50 for seniors and $7.00 for children ages 3-11. And, as always, Friends of the Zoo (FOTZ) members are free. FOTZ Memberships are on sale; family memberships are only $75. Call (816) 513-5800, or visit our web site www.kansascityzoo.org for more information. To view Kansas City Zoo's web page on Zoo and Aquarium Visitor, go to: http://www.zandavisitor.com/forumtopicdetail-3227-The_Kansas_City_Zoo Source

Is It Fair To Keep a Monkey Away From Others Monkeys? NO!

How about adopting a child? Being a Big Sister or taking in a Wednesday's Child? OR......Volunteer at a Zoo, The Humane Society, your local SPCA?
This is disgusting!


Many parents face empty-nest syndrome when their kids move out of the house, but some parents have a unique way of filling the void -- by raising monkeys as children. These "monkids," as many people who have brought monkeys into their families call them, raise a lot of eyebrows but these "new parents" say they feel fulfilled.
(Courtesy of the Johnson Family)

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Monkeys Owners Treat Monkeys Like Children, Disgusting!

Jesus and Carmen waited seven years, until they were financially stable, to adopt a newborn.

But the Indiana couple didn't adopt a human baby. They adopted a baby monkey.

"She's pretty much our entire lives, actually," Jesus said of baby "Butters."

Monkey business is big business in the United States, where some people pay up to $5,000 to adopt a monkey of their own, often a capuchin monkey, which can grow up to 22 inches and 9 pounds. There are hundreds of videos on the Internet of proud parents enjoying their monkeys, and an estimated 15,000 monkeys live with humans as pets or surrogate children in the United States.

And in some cases, monkey babies are more than pets: They are sons and daughters. These families dress their monkeys, feed them at the dinner table and treat them like any other member of the family.

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42 YO Lowland Gorilla, Josephine Will Undergo Eye Surgery

MIAMI (CBS4) ―

Josephine is 42 years old; a senior citizen by gorilla standards. She will undergo surgery to remove cataracts.

MIAMI METROZOO

Josephine is 42 years old; a senior citizen by gorilla standards. She will undergo surgery to remove cataracts.

MIAMI METROZOO

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A lowland gorilla at Miami's Metrozoo will be going through surgery Friday to remove severe cataracts and implant new lenses in each of her eyes. Right now, the animal is practically blind – left only seeing light, dark and shadows.

This state-of-the-art procedure may be done daily on humans and even commonly in dogs and horses, but it's a rarity in the wild animal kingdom; it's been performed less than a dozen times on gorillas.

The latest in cataract surgery technology has been carefully moved from Palm Beach Veterinary Specialists operating room in West Palm Beach, Florida and reassembled especially for the surgery.

Josephine will be immobilized with a dart Saturday morning at about 9:00. Assuming the tranquilizer takes effect properly, she will be transported to the hospital at about 9:30, where she will be weighed and then intubated for general anesthesia.

The surgery should begin at approximately 10:00 a.m. and is expected to take approximately 90 minutes for both eyes to have the cataracts removed and the new lenses implanted.

Josephine is 42 years old; a senior citizen by gorilla standards, as life expectancy is rarely above 50. Her age is suspected to be a major factor in the severity of the cataracts. The riskiest part of the procedure will be the anesthesia.

"Though Josephine's advanced age brings a significant risk to this procedure, the possibility of restoring Josephine's eyesight outweighed those risks," Metrozoo spokesperson Ron McGill explained. "Our commitment is to provide our animals the best quality of life possible and this surgery is an admirable and dedicated effort towards that commitment."

If all goes well, Josephine could be back on exhibit Saturday.

Dr. Christine Miller, Metrozoo's Chief Veterinarian, will be in charge of immobilizing Josephine and keeping her stable throughout the procedure. Dr. Frank Spektor, a medical ophthalmologist from the Center for Excellence in Eye Care will be the lead surgeon for the cataract removal and implant procedure. He will be assisted by Dr. Tim J. Cutler, a veterinary ophthalmologist from Palm Beach Veterinary Specialists who specializes in veterinary lens implants and cataract surgery, and Dr. Lorraine Karpinski, a veterinary ophthalmologist from Pinecrest Veterinary Hospital who has performed a variety of eye procedures on different animals at Metrozoo in the past.

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Wild Monkeys, Entering Homes, and Attacking Their Pets

KUANTAN, MALAYIA - Residents in several areas in Batu Tiga and Sungai Isap near here are living in fear as wild monkeys have been entering their homes and attacking their pets.

Over the past few days, several of the long-tail macaques have entered premises in Sungai Isap Perdana, including a religious school which has more than 500 students.

Sekolah Agama Rakyat Kafa Alif headmaster Rosli Ahmad said his staff panicked when a monkey entered the school's cooperative office at about 9.30am on Tuesday.

"We were scared that the animal would attack our students and tried to chase it out."

"However, it entered a bakery next to our school," he said at the school yesterday.

Rosli, however, said a man who came to pick up his son from the school managed to capture the animal before it was released in a nearby jungle.

"Just imagine what will happen if our students were outside the classrooms when the monkey was here," he said, adding that he hoped the relevant agencies would take action to stop the threat from the wild monkeys.

Rosli said the construction of a bund at Sungai Belat nearby had destroyed the monkeys' natural habitat and had caused them to wander into the housing areas to find food.

Muhammad Uwais Nordin, 11, of Sekolah Kebangsaan Batu Tiga, said a monkey attacked two of his kittens on the same day, killing both.

Several students also claimed that the monkeys had charged them on several occasions.

Mohd Abdul Muizzuddin Abdul Mubin, 11, said the monkeys had tried to attack him when he was walking towards Sekolah Kebangsaan Sungai Isap recently.

"They were very fierce but I managed to reach the school compound before they could attack me."

His classmate, Mohd Added Azeman said that he had used a stick to chase the monkeys away but most of them were not afraid of humans anymore.

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Discovery Announced by Scientists, Earliest PreHuman

A research team led by Bay Area scientists has unveiled the oldest-known member of the human family tree: a 4.4 million-year-old female skeleton named "Ardi," who shares both chimp and modern human features.

Believed to be capable of both climbing and walking, "Ardi" reveals the early evolutionary steps that our ancestors took after we diverged from our common ancestor with chimpanzees.

"It's not a chimp. It's not a human. It shows us what we used to be," said paleoanthropologist Tim White of the University of California-Berkeley, co-director of the research group that discovered and analyzed the fossils, described in a special issue of the Oct. 2 journal Science. "It bridges a gap."

In a press briefing this morning in Washington D.C., White and his team described the Ethiopian skeleton — a creature called Ardipithecus ramidus, thought to weigh 110 pounds and stand about four feet tall — that is stunningly complete, with most of skull and teeth as well as a pelvis, hands and feet.

"Ardi" and bone fragments from at least 35 related individuals were found in the 1990s. But it took 17 years for the team — 47 different scientists from ten different countries, as well as Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Berkeley Geochronology Center — to analyze and interpret the data.

Until now, the earliest known specimen of human evolution was Australopithecus, a small-brain but fully bipedal "ape-man" that lived between 4 and 1 million years ago. The most famous member of this genus was the 3.2-million-year-old skeleton nicknamed "Lucy," found in 1974.

The new skeleton is older and more primitive than Lucy, according to White, 59, who has collected fossils in the hot and scrubby region of Ethiopia since 1981. He wore a "Save UC" button in Washington D.C., decrying budget cuts to the university.

With both chimp-like and human features, "Ardi" lived in two worlds — upright but also in trees.

For instance, she was adept at efficiently climbing — but could also walk on two feet, like humans. Because she had a fully opposable grasping big toe and did not have an arched foot, she walked flat-footed. It's unlikely she could walk or run for long distances, like humans. But nor was she as agile as chimps, so could not swing through trees. She was probably a slow and careful climber.

She is thought to have been more omnivorous than chimpanzees, eating nuts, insects and small mammals in the woods.

Her lower face had a muzzle that juts out less than a chimpanzee's. Her face is in a more vertical position. Her head balanced atop the spine, as in later upright walkers. And her teeth lack the sharp canines of chimps. Her pelvis is large, like apes. But it is structured so it has a low center of gravity, so she could balance while walking. There are suggestions that her spine is long and curved, like humans.

But she is not "the missing link," a transitional creature between today's chimps and humans. This concept has been abandoned: We did not evolve from living champs or apes, but shared a common ancestor.

Nor is she this long-sought "last common ancestor." That's because she's too young; Chimps and humans are thought to have diverged between 5 and 10 million years ago. Then we went our separate ways, each taking different evolutionary trajectories.

But she's important because she is the closest we have come to this unfound "last common ancestor." She belonged to a new type of early hominid that was neither chimpanzee nor fully human.

The scientists have not fully connected the branches in the human evolutionary tree. Rather, they are focusing on the anatomical interpretation of "Ardi."

The name Ardipithecus ramidus is derived from the Ethiopian local language, Afar. "Ardi" means "ground," and "pithecus" is Greek for ape. "Ramid" means root. A literal translation of the creature is "root of the ground ape."

The fossils were found in Ethiopia's Afar Rift, about 140 miles northeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capitol. The rift is a large triangular depression, where sediments have been accumulating for millions of years. The most fossil-rich site is very extensive — transecting an ancient landscape exposed along a 41/2-mile strip — and provides a vast amount of new geological and paleobiological data.

Now parched desert, the landscape was once heavily wooded. There were fresh water springs and small patches of dense forest. The site also holds fossils of fig trees, land snails, birds such as owls and parrots, small mammals like mice and bats, as well as rhinos, bears, elephants, giraffes, antelopes and two kinds of monkeys.

The discovery of "Ardi" in woodlands refutes the once-popular hypothesis that early humans took their first steps in open grasslands, say scientists.

The first glimpse of the creature came in 1992 when a former UC-Berkeley grad student, Gen Suwa, saw a glint in desert pebbles — the polished surface of a tooth root from a hominim molar. The team immediately got on their hands and knees and searched for more fossils. Within days, they had found a lower jaw of a child.

In 1994, Berkeley graduate student Yohanes Haile-Selassie of Ethiopia crawled up an embankment in the region and found two pieces of a bone from the palm of a hand.

This was soon followed by the discovery of 110 other skeletal fragments, as well as 150,000 specimens of fossil plants and animals.

"This team seems to suck fossils out of the earth," anatomist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University, also part of the team, told the journal Science.

But the bones were in terrible condition, trampled and scattered. White called them "road kill." So entire blocks of fossil-rich rock were moved to the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa. It took years to remove the clay from the fragile fossils.

Many high-tech instruments were used in the analysis, such as mass spectrometers to measure the age of the rock and micro-CT scanners to study the inner anatomy of bones and teeth. Electron microscopes revealed the tiny surface details of the fossils.

The lava and ashes were shipped from Africa to California for dating analysis.

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, Giday WoldeGabriel helped produce a detailed chemical profile of the major constituents of the glass shards found in the volcanic ash surrounding the fossils.

The Berkeley Geochronology Center did paleomagnetic lab work, using a dating technique that determines how much time has elapsed since the eruption of volcanic ash.

"Because they were sandwiched between two volcanic horizons with virtually indistinguishable dates, the thousands of fossils collected at Aramis are among the best calibrated in the world, at 4.4 million years ago," said project geochronologist Paul Renne of the Berkeley Geochronology Center.

UC-Berkeley was critical to the fossil-mining operation that discovered "Ardi," said White.

White came to UC-Berkeley because of its reputation in the exploration of human origins. He became interested in the field as a teenager after reading the 1965 Time/Life Nature Library book, "Early Man," written by famed Berkeley anthropologist Francis Clark Howell. Once at Berkeley, White studied under Howell and esteemed African archeologist J. Desmond Clark.

About one-quarter of the project's 47 authors were educated or trained at UC-Berkeley, he said. The university also trained the first generation of African scholars in the field. Africans now play a critical role in studying and preserving this cradle of humankind.

"We are very proud of Cal," said White. "This is what universities can achieve — and especially the public museums that support and produce this research, which are under great stress today."

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Wildlife Trafficker Found to Have Had a Live Chimpanzee, and Chimpanzee Skulls

A wildlife trafficker has been arrested in Bissombo, Bengbis in the South Region. He was arrested in possession of a live chimpanzee, elephant parts and chimpanzee skulls, some of which were still fresh, implying that the animals had just been killed to obtain those parts for illegal trade.

The animals are suspected to have been captured or killed within the Dja Reserve which stretches from the South to the East Regions. Wildlife law enforcement authorities in that Region have established a case file against the trafficker who is now behind bars. The live chimpanzee was taken to the Mefou National Park in the Centre Region by the Cameroon Wildlife Aid Fund (CWAF) management where it is receiving veterinary and feeding care.

Before this recent arrest a trafficker with a long history of illegal killing of elephants had been arrested around the Dja Reserve area in Somalomo, Messamena in the Upper Nyong Division of the East Region. The trafficker was found in possession of the trunk of a young elephant and other elephant parts.

The operations that led to the arrest of these traffickers were carried out by the East and South Regional Delegations of Forestry and Wildlife in collaboration with the Forces of Law and Order, the Upper Nyong Divisional Delegation of Forestry and Wildlife and the Judiciary. These operations are in consonant with the on-going nation-wide programme on wildlife law enforcement launched by government in 2003 with technical assistance from The Last Great Ape Organisation (LAGA) which aims at bringing violators of the 1994 wildlife law to justice amidst wide media coverage to create deterrence in wildlife crime which hitherto has been a missing ingredient in the conservation formula in Africa South of the Sahara.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Forestry of Forestry and Wildlife is now in a renewed alert mode to track down and sanction, all those trafficking in wildlife species totally protected by the law of 1994 governing the wildlife sector in Cameroon. The law stipulates that anyone found in possession of part of dead or live protected wildlife species is liable to a prison term of up to 3 years and or payment of a fine of up to 10 million CFA francs. The effective enforcement of this law has made Cameroon to be seen by the international community as a world leader in wildlife conservation. "Cameroon is seen more and more by the international community as a land of wildlife conservation where the wildlife law and policy are good and well balanced", states Professor Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, Minister of Forestry and Wildlife.

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