The Little Rock Zoo

.The Little Rock Zoo needs to step up and care for the animals better! Please read the several artciles here with deaths, sickness and a bald chimp!

Monday, June 22, 2009

Social-Brain of Sociopaths is Similar To That of Chimpanzees

A society where everyone is a sociopath

This week I want to reach out to all of you who feel that you can no longer trust people. Imagine a world where your worst fears have come true, a world where everyone over the age of 15 is a sociopath. What would it be like to live in that world?
If you only read one book this summer, I strongly urge you to read Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes by Frans de Waal. I have said before that I think the social-brain of sociopaths is similar to that of chimps. Now having read that book I am even more convinced.

Chimpanzee Politics is the true life story of the relationships between individuals of the Arnhem Chimp Colony. Scientists carefully observed, photographed, filmed and recorded every interaction between troop members over several years. I don’t want to give away the story, because it is shocking, and you should read it for yourself. The chimps’ story is presented as a very readable narrative that brings to life all of their individual personalities.

I want to outline here the major findings that help us to understand ourselves and sociopaths.

1) Chimpanzees practice deception extensively. Take this example given on page 36:

Dandy is the youngest and lowest ranking of the four grown males. The other three, and in particular the alpha male, do not tolerate any sexual intercourse between Dandy and the adult females. Nevertheless, every now and again he does succeed in mating with them after having made a “date.” When this happens Dandy and the female pretend to be walking in the same direction by chance, and if all goes well they meet behind a few tree trunks. These dates take place after the exchange of a few glances and in some case a brief nudge.

This kind of mating is frequently associated with signal suppression and concealment. ..Dandy and a female were courting each other surreptitiously. Dandy began to make advances to the female, while at the same time restlessly looking around to see if any of the other males were watching. Male chimpanzees start their advances by sitting with their legs wide apart revealing their erection. Precisely at the point when Dandy was exhibiting his sexual urge in this way Luit, one of the older males, unexpectedly came around the corner. Dandy immediately dropped his hands over his penis concealing it from view.

2) Chimpanzees manipulate and instigate.

3) Chimpanzees fake emotions to get attention and influence others.

4) Chimpanzees hurt one another and only care about the hurt because of what others will think. There is an awareness that hurting is wrong and those who hurt are punished, but they do not appear to care unless someone else sees it.

5) A male chimpanzee will use a “friend” to form a coalition to achieve his aims, then soon after turn on the friend. Male chimps have no problem killing their “friends.”

6) Most interestingly, chimpanzees remember each other and recognize individuals but only females take that a step further and maintain a slightly loyal relationship with another individual. All of the chimps’ loyalties are temporary. Their loyalties are based on exchange. Touch which feels good, sex, food and protection are part of the exchange. They have incredible memories for who they have done favors for, and who has done favors for them. The pleasure they receive due to another’s actions is not lasting and if a coalition is to be maintained, it has to be continually reinforced, with touch, food, sex or some other favor.

7) For chimps, affectionate touching is part of dominance coalition development as opposed to meaningful friendship. In other words, my dog comes to get a caress and kiss me because I am special and he loves me. A chimp engages in the same behavior because he knows it will get him something.

I am very interested in the idea that affection and touching can be part of either love or power motives in humans. It is my observation that many of the worst sociopaths/psychopaths enjoy giving and receiving a touch and a hug. If they are incapable of love how can this be? Is it really all fake? I do not think so. I wrote one of the country’s leading chimpanzee experts about the idea that touching is linked to dominance and power motivation. This is what he replied:

Your recent email was very interesting. Indeed there has been a considerable amount of research on grooming in chimpanzees and it appears that much of male grooming does conform to your hypothesis about grooming being related to dominance status. The grooming is clearly related to achieving or maintaining status and usually does not indicate anything close to affection.

A related phenomenon is the role of grooming in all male patrols in wild chimpanzees. Chimpanzees live in large groups that are highly territorial. All male coalitions sometime form and engage intense grooming among themselves. They proceed in single file towards the territorial boundary, remaining uncharacteristically silent (as if on radio silence). If they then encounter a single male from the adjoining troop they attack him usually killing or severely injuring him. Females or infants from the adjoining population are also sometimes killed.

So grooming in the first case is simply part of a political strategy involving status. In the second case, it seems to solidify group coherence to achieve a rather nasty result.

I offer you this to help you in your recovery: next time you are daydreaming of that wonderful touch from the sociopath you loved, picture the person with the face of a chimp! Get it through your head, the touch was not about love. It was about power and control over you. Like chimps, sociopaths can only retain the pleasure of what you bring them for a short time. The minute you no longer serve a purpose you risk being discarded or worse.

Now go back to imagining a world consumed with deception, fake emotion, manipulation, power and violence. That is the world of the chimpanzee NOT the world of homo sapiens. The majority of our species has the capacity for bonds of affection. Furthermore, for many, many people, real affection and genuine caring even extends to strangers. After reading deWaal’s account, I feel very optimistic about us.

DeWaal drew some interesting conclusions of his own:

Politicians, for example, are vociferous about their ideas and promises but are careful not to disclose personal aspirations for power. This is not meant to be a reproach, because after all everyone plays the same game. I would go further and say that we are largely unaware that we are playing a game and hide our motives not only from others but also underestimate the immense effect they have on our own behavior. Chimpanzees, on the other hand are quite blatant about their “baser” motives. Their interest in power is not greater than that of humanity; it is just more obvious…Humans should regard it as an honor to be classified as political animals.

I agree that humans as a species are preoccupied with power and that the preoccupation is no less than that of the chimpanzee. However, balancing that power motive for most of us is an equally strong love motive. The love motive, not our political cunning is our true claim to greatness and honor. Thankfully, for humans, unbalanced power motives, egocentricity and the incapacity for love constitute a disorder and not our way of life."

Source

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Chimpanzee and Monkey Bites and Attacks

Animal Attacks: Primates

The following is a partial listing of incidents involving captive primates between 1990 and 2002. These incidents resulted in the killing of 450 primates, two human deaths, and more than 140 human injuries. Contact PETA for documentation.


September 10, 2005/Royal, Nebraska: Four chimpanzees, including Tyler and Ripley, who were
once used in television and movies, escaped from their cage at a roadside zoo in Nebraska, confronted zoo
visitors, and terrorized the neighborhood as they ran amok in the town of Royal. Tyler was shot dead, and
Ripley, the only chimpanzee to survive the shootout, was transferred to a substandard roadside zoo and
breeding facility in Missouri. Connie Casey Braun

March 3, 2005/Caliente, California: Two former “show biz” chimpanzees raised at Bob Dunn’s Animal
Services were shot and killed after escaping from their cage at Animal Haven Ranch and attacking a couple
who were visiting the facility. The woman’s thumb was bitten off and her husband was severely mauled. The
chimpanzees bit off his nose, an eye, part of his cheek, his lips, most of his fingers, both testicles, and much of the flesh from his buttocks, face, and left foot. According to a medic at the scene, “His face was gone.”

April 22, 2001/Ventura, California: According to a Ventura County Animal Bite Record, a 2-year-old male
chimpanzee named Mr. P, belonging to Sid Yost’s Amazing Animal Actors, was ordered to be
quarantined for 30 days after lunging at and biting a 12-year-old boy on the left hand.

April 19, 2001/Jefferson County, Missouri: Three chimpanzees with Chimparty, Connie Casey Braun a company owned by Connie and Mike Casey that supplies primates for parties and TV commercials, escaped from an unlocked cage. A teenage boy shot and killed one of the chimpanzees.

January 30, 2001/Las Vegas, Nevada: A 1-year-old female chimpanzee named C.J., belonging to Monica
Riddell’s Xotic Stars of Las Vegas, bit a person on the finger during public exhibition.
MB- See even the babies bite and can do damage!

September 10, 2002/Northwest Montana: A "pet" macaque taken to malls bit at least three people. One incident occurred at a restaurant, a second at a fruit stand, and a third at the owner's residence. The monkey was quarantined and two victims went for medical treatment.

September 8, 2002/Hillsboro, Ore.: A female rhesus macaque escaped from the Oregon National Primate Research Center while being transferred between buildings. Police warned area residents not to approach the animal. She was recaptured two days later.

August 7, 2002/Racine, Minn.: A volunteer at BEARCAT Hollow animal park was attacked by a monkey as she entered the cage. The monkey grabbed her hair and bit her on the finger. The volunteer needed five stitches and rabies shots.

June 23, 2002/Magnolia, Texas: A "pet" Java macaque attacked and bit a 9-year-old boy and a woman and severely scratched a firefighter, sending all three to the hospital for treatment.

May 13, 2002/Frankfort, Ind.: A lemur jumped on and scratched a keeper's arm as she retrieved a food dish from the monkey's cage at a petting zoo at the TPA park. The keeper needed seven stitches in her arm and the monkey was quarantined.

April 3, 2002/Honolulu, Hawaii: A Honolulu Zoo employee was attacked by a siamang gibbon as she cleaned the animal's sleeping area. The woman suffered cuts and bites to both legs and received 45 stitches.

March 31, 2002/Japan: A "pet" monkey escaped from his cage and bit two people. The monkey was later captured by police in Seto.

January 10, 2002/Knox County, Tenn.: A "pet" Japanese snow macaque escaped from a backyard cage and attacked a neighbor, biting his back and hand.

September 10, 2001/Danville, N.H.: A search party was organized after at least 10 monkey sightings were reported, including by the fire chief. The monkey, believed to be an escaped "pet," was seen running across streets and into bushes and was described as being 8 feet long from his tail to his hands. Experts fear that the monkey will perish if not captured before winter.

July 27, 2001/Martinsburg, W.Va.: A "pet" monkey kept in a trailer park, believed to be a rhesus macaque, escaped and bit two children and a teenager. The bite victims underwent testing for herpes, tuberculosis, HIV, and other conditions.

June 29, 2001/Tunney’s Pasture, Ottawa, Canada: Health Canada officials announced that at least two laboratory workers contracted simian foamy virus from macaque monkeys used at the Sir Frederick Grant Banting Research Centre.

June 16, 2001/Mexico: Actor Salma Hayek suffered nerve and ligament damage after she was attacked and bitten on the hands, arms, and fingers by a capuchin monkey on a movie set.

June 14, 2001/Seattle, Wash.: Woodland Park Zoo officials euthanized a 20-year-old lion-tailed macaque who tested positive for the herpes B virus.

June 9, 2001/Omaha, Neb.: A squirrel monkey roaming freely and mingling with zoo visitors in an exhibit at Henry Doorly Zoo bit a woman’s finger, causing an infection, after she offered the animal a cookie.

May 12, 2001/Lakeland, Fla.: Health officials searched in vain for a woman who brought a "pet" monkey on a leash to a festival after the monkey bit and scratched a man on the arm. The man was treated for herpes B for fear that he might have contracted the deadly virus.

April 19, 2001/Jefferson County, Mo.: Three chimpanzees with Chimparty, a company owned by Connie and Mike Casey that supplies primates for parties and TV commercials, escaped from an unlocked cage. A teenage boy shot and killed one of the chimpanzees.

April 3, 2001/Budapest, Hungary: Two chimpanzees escaped from their cages in a traveling circus and went on a rampage, terrorizing residents and attacking two people. One chimpanzee was cornered in a courtyard, and the other knocked himself out when he ran into a glass door.

February 19, 2001/Stevensville, Canada: A 6-year-old girl had a portion of her index finger bitten off by a spider monkey at a petting zoo.

December 2, 2000/Oklahoma City, Okla.: A 5-year-old "pet" capuchin, who was taken on a shopping trip to Home Depot, attacked and bit a teenage shopper on the leg.

October 17, 2000/France: French authorities reported that increasing numbers of dangerous and uncontrollable Barbary macaques were being abandoned by their owners and left to roam. An estimated 500 Barbary apes had been smuggled into the country in the previous two years to keep as "pets" or attack animals.

September 29, 2000/Tulsa, Okla.: A 4-year-old girl required hospital treatment after she was bitten or scratched on the cheek by a monkey brought to a motel.

September 25, 2000/Maryville, Tenn.: A girl was treated at a hospital for a bite wound to her arm inflicted by her stepfather’s "pet" Japanese snow macaque.

September 23, 2000/Jarratt, Va.: Three escaped monkeys threw fruit at vehicles traveling the interstate. After police arrived at the scene, the monkeys dashed across the interstate and disappeared into the woods.

August 15, 2000/Sprague, W.Va.: A "pet" chimpanzee escaped from his cage for three hours, biting a teenager on the hand and biting a neighbor who had tried to restrain the 150-pound animal. The same chimpanzee had escaped in July 1998 and attacked a postal truck, forcing the driver to flee and causing the truck to crash.

August 12, 2000/Jessamine County, Ky.: A woman who was eight months pregnant was hospitalized after one of her two "pet" rhesus macaques suddenly turned violent while her cage was being cleaned and bit the woman’s nose. The woman was given an anti-viral medication, which was a hazard to her pregnancy, in case the monkey tested positive for herpes B. She had been inspired to purchase "pet" monkeys when, as a child, she saw monkeys riding bicycles in a circus.

August 8, 2000/San Angelo, Texas: A capuchin "went crazy" and bit his owner. The owner shot the monkey seven or eight times, killing him. This is the same monkey who bit a neighbor on January 9, 1998.

August 3, 2000/Southwest Ranches, Fla.: A "pet" spider monkey escaped from his cage and attacked two teenage girls. The girls were treated at the hospital for scratch and bite wounds to their faces, heads, and arms. The monkey was captured the next day. The same monkey had attacked a woman six months earlier.

August 1, 2000/Dover, Wis.: A "pet" Japanese macaque got loose and attacked two people. The monkey grabbed a neighbor around the waist and inflicted four bite wounds to the leg. Moments later, the monkey bit a postal carrier on the hand. The monkey was captured and killed.

July 24, 2000/Dallas, Texas: A chimpanzee was electrocuted after escaping from her habitat at the Dallas Zoo. She scratched a zookeeper, who required hospital treatment, and climbed a telephone pole. The zookeeper fired at the chimpanzee with a shotgun, and a veterinarian fired a tranquilizer at the animal, causing her to fall. She was electrocuted as she grabbed for a power line.

July 18, 2000/Jefferson City, Mo.: A 7-year-old boy, riding his bicycle, was attacked by a neighbor’s "pet" rhesus macaque, who jumped from a tree and bit the boy's arm. The child was subjected to a two-month ordeal involving doctors, needles, tests, and the fear of contracting the deadly herpes virus.

July 13, 2000/Ishikawa, Okinawa: A "pet" Japanese macaque escaped from his cage and attacked two people. One man was in serious condition after the monkey severed one of his arteries.

June 1, 2000/Columbia, Md.: An escaped 2_-foot-tall spider monkey chased a woman who had just stepped outside her home and bit her on the thigh, then ran away.

May 2000/Tulsa, Okla.: A monkey bit a boy in a pet store.

April 9, 2000/Franklin, Tenn.: A chimpanzee named Angel, brought by Sid Yost (also known as Ranger Rick Kelly) to Blockbuster Video for photo ops and to promote a Critter Gitter movie, fiercely bit a 9-year-old girl on the hand after posing for a photograph. The girl’s hand swelled and required stitches. Yost left the state before the chimpanzee could be quarantined and was issued a citation for violating Tennessee’s exotic animal law. Yost failed to show up in court and never paid the fine. The girl’s parents filed a $50,000 lawsuit against Yost, Critter Gitters, and Blockbuster, claiming that the defendants should have been aware of the danger inherent in subjecting Angel to a crowded area with so many children. None of the parties named in the lawsuit offered to pay for medical expenses.

March 28, 2000/Stirlingshire, Scotland: A colony of 89 rhesus macaques was shot dead at the Blair Drummond Safari Park after they were found to have herpes B. The monkeys were famous for clambering over cars and tourist buses.

March 21, 2000/West Midland, England: A colony of 130 rhesus macaques was shot dead at West Midlands Safari and Leisure Park after they were found to have herpes B.

March 3, 2000/London, England: A colony of 215 rhesus macaques was shot dead at the Woburn Safari Park in central England after routine medical tests showed that 11 were infected with herpes B. In 1999, Britain’s health authorities upgraded the seriousness of herpes B to the same level as hemorrhagic fevers Ebola and Lassa.

February 13, 2000/Lansing, Ill.: A "pet" Java macaque attacked his owner, inflicting 6-inch-deep bites and cuts on her head, arms, and legs and causing her to lose a pint and a half of blood. She underwent three hours of surgery and 12 weeks of physical therapy. The monkey was killed for rabies tests.

January 14, 2000/Palm Harbor, Fla.: A "pet" spider monkey escaped from a backyard cage and attacked a dog being walked by a neighbor. The dog went into shock and suffered serious artery and tendon damage.

December 28, 1999/Des Moines, Iowa: A rhesus macaque found wandering the streets on November 23, 1999, bit an animal control officer.

December 15, 1999/Rancho Bernardo, Calif.: An escaped 3-foot-tall spider monkey led police on a two-hour chase, frightened residents, and bit a police officer.

November 11, 1999/Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: A "pet" monkey ran amok and twice invaded an elementary school, biting three students on their arms and legs.

November 1, 1999/Euless, Texas: A "pet" capuchin monkey attacked and bit an elderly woman.

October 4, 1999/Evansville, Ind.: A child was bitten on his finger by a macaque at Mesker Park Zoo. Two of the zoo’s six macaque monkeys selected at random tested positive for the herpes B virus.

September 14, 1999/ Yokohama, Japan: A Japanese macaque escaped from a steel cage in a pet store and attacked two children.

September 1, 1999/West Covina, Calif.: A "pet" chimpanzee bit off the fingertip of a woman visiting the owner’s home. This is the same chimpanzee who attacked four people on August 19, 1998.

August 5, 1999/Bellevue, Neb.: A police officer was sent to the hospital after a macaque with a history of biting people bit him on the leg.

July 31, 1999/Kissimmee, Fla.: A "pet" capuchin escaped and attacked a boy, scratching his leg. The monkey bit one police officer on the leg and pulled the hair of another before he was recaptured.

June 20, 1999/Philadelphia, Pa.: An orangutan at the Philadelphia Zoo escaped from the exhibit he was in and ran loose in the zoo for 25 minutes before he was tranquilized by a veterinarian.

May 11, 1999/Idaho Falls, Idaho: A woman went to the hospital after a caged "pet" monkey bit her.

April 15, 1999/Punta Gorda Isles, Fla.: A police officer used a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot and kill a 2-foot-tall rhesus macaque. The monkey had been running loose and acting aggressively toward residents for a month.

April 1, 1999/Glen Burnie, Md.: A 2-year-old Bonnett macaque bit a woman on the lip at a tavern, touching off a brawl in which two other people were bitten. Animal control had on file instances of seven other people who had been bitten or scratched by the 9-pound "pet" monkey. The owners ignored animal control orders not to take the monkey out in public. One of the injured parties filed a $25,000 lawsuit.

March 3, 1999/Bristol, England: Two 7-inch "pet" marmosets were turned over to the RSPCA after they terrorized and attacked a family, causing cuts to arms, legs, and hands and ripping apart the kitchen.

February 27, 1999/Salt Lake City, Utah: Two chimpanzees at the Hogle Zoo attacked two employees. One worker was in critical condition after losing part of his nose and a finger. The two chimpanzees were shot with a shotgun and later killed.

January 14, 1999/Singapore: A truck driver underwent surgery on his finger and was hospitalized for three days after he was bitten while capturing a tamarin who had been released from a zoo.

January 13, 1999/Hillsborough, Fla.: A "pet" capuchin attacked her owner, biting her 50 times on the hands and legs.

November 1, 1998/Euless, Texas: A spider monkey bit a student at an elementary school.

October 4, 1998/Slidell, La.: An escaped "pet" vervet ran wild in a house, knocking over a lamp and attacking two women, biting one on the arm and slashing the legs of another with teeth and claws. A police officer responding to the frantic 911 call was also attacked. The monkey threw a picture frame at him, then jumped on and bit him. Both women needed stitches. The monkey was killed.

August 19, 1998/West Covina, Calif.: A "pet" chimpanzee escaped from his cage and went berserk, biting four people and denting a police car with his fists during a three-hour rampage. One officer required three surgeries on his hand at a cost of $250,000.

July 6, 1998/Sprague, W.Va.: A "pet" chimpanzee escaped from his enclosure and attacked a postal truck, forcing the driver to flee and causing the truck to crash.

May 18, 1998/Narbonne, France: Chimpanzees escaped from their enclosure at a wild animal park and attacked construction workers. One worker was mauled so badly that he needed 30 stitches on his face and neck.

May 1, 1998/Wichita, Kan.: A macaque bit a child and a teenager at a store during a promotional event.

April 26, 1998/Rishon Le-Zion, Israel: A monkey escaped from his cage at the Hai-Kef Zoo in Rishon Le-Zion and attacked an 18-year-old employee, biting his arms, face, and back. Medics said that the man’s face was barely recognizable and that his hands had been bitten off. Police killed the monkey.

April 13, 1998/Atlanta, Ga.: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that four lab workers who handled monkeys had become infected with monkey viruses.

April 8, 1998/Beirut, Lebanon: A monkey escaped from his cage in an amusement park and bit four people. Police shot and killed the monkey.

February 27, 1998/Sibu, Malaysia: A 3-year-old girl was hospitalized with injuries to her head, face, eyes, upper lip, and thigh after she was attacked by a "pet" monkey who had broken loose from his chain. Two boys beat the monkey to death with a piece of wood.

January 9, 1998/San Angelo, Texas: A "pet" capuchin bit a 19-year-old neighbor man, who underwent rabies shots.

January 5, 1998/Madison, Wis.: Henry Vilas Zoo announced that its 150 macaques had been exposed to herpes B and one-third of them were infectious carriers and were considered to pose a public health risk.

December 28, 1997/Charlotte County, Fla.: A 6-year-old visiting Octagon Exotics was attacked by a caged baboon, who pulled out chunks of her hair and attempted to bite her.

December 10, 1997/Atlanta, Ga.: A Yerkes primate researcher died of herpes B after she was splashed in the eye with bodily fluids from a rhesus macaque.

October 6, 1997/South Barrington, Ill.: A baboon at a petting zoo bit a 4-year-old girl.

August 15, 1997/Elburn, Ill.: A baboon with a traveling zoo scratched a 15-year-old girl’s leg during a parade.

August 8, 1997/Hartford, Conn.: A "pet" Java macaque got away while being taken for a walk and attacked an elderly neighbor woman, grabbing her hair and biting her arm.

July 12, 1997/Glen Burnie, Md.: A 6-year-old girl who had been bitten in the face by a "pet" Bonnett macaque while at a carnival was treated at a nearby hospital for her wound and received six shots to her face, arms, and legs.

July 7, 1997/Bridgton, Maine: State game wardens seized a "pet" squirrel monkey after the animal bit and scratched a woman standing in a supermarket checkout line.

June 29, 1997/Bourbonnais, Ill.: A vervet with a traveling zoo bit a 3-year-old girl in the face at a festival.

June 5, 1997/Beirut, Lebanon: An escaped "pet" monkey spread panic in two schools where two children and a teacher were bitten. The monkey was shot dead by police.

June 4, 1997/Montréal, Québec: A leashed monkey grabbed the leg of a passerby and bit her on the knee. Wildlife officials reported that the monkey had bitten at least six people recently.

March 1, 1997/Houston, Texas: An 8-year-old capuchin turned on his owner and nearly killed her, severing her thumb and part of her index finger and slicing her legs.

September 28, 1996/Los Angeles, Calif.: Actor Elizabeth Hurley reeled back in shock when she was bitten on the ear by a chimpanzee while appearing on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show.

September 22, 1996/Palm Beach, Fla.: A pigtailed macaque who tested positive for herpes B bit a 4-year-old girl on the shoulder while he was being taken for a walk. The "pet" monkey had been kissed and held by hundreds of people. Authorities confiscated the animal.

September 20, 1996/New Delhi, India: A monkey mauled a zookeeper to death at the Alipore zoo. The keeper’s jugular veins were severed in the attack.

May 18, 1996/Staten Island, N.Y.: Four heavily armed emergency service police officers chased a capuchin monkey through a residential neighborhood for 45 minutes. The monkey escaped, fleeing into woods near the Staten Island mall.

April 6, 1996/Alice, Texas: Two monkeys imported into a research facility were infected with the deadly Ebola virus. One monkey died and the other was killed.

March 24, 1996/Gainesville, Fla.: Residents were warned not to catch, feed, or touch a rhesus macaque exposed to the herpes B virus who had escaped from a research farm.

February 28, 1996/Metairie, La.: A "pet" vervet was impounded after biting an animal control officer during a home inspection. The monkey had earlier scratched the owner’s 2-year-old son.

February 22, 1996/Hong Kong, China: A starving monkey bit a handler while his cage was being cleaned. The handler received seven stitches to his legs. The monkey was one of six monkeys, 15 tigers, and 10 horses with a Russian circus that ran out of money and could no longer feed the animals.

February 1, 1996/Bridgton, Maine: The same squirrel monkey who attacked a woman on July 7, 1997, in a supermarket bit a child during a school demonstration.

November 14, 1995/Acadiana, La.: A zoo worker at the Zoo of Acadiana was viciously attacked and bitten on the leg by a monkey who escaped during a medical exam. The employee was off work for several days with an infected leg.

September 8, 1995/Royal Oak, Mich.: The owner of a 3-year-old spider monkey received 17 stitches in his lower lip after the monkey attacked him.

July 16, 1995/Los Angeles, Calif.: A Los Angeles Zoo volunteer was placing popcorn in the monkey exhibit when a monkey mauled her. She sustained lacerations, puncture wounds, and deep cuts, leaving her disfigured and permanently disabled. A lawsuit was filed against the zoo.

July 14, 1995/Scarborough, Toronto: A man was hospitalized after being bitten in the leg by a neighbor’s spider monkey.

June 3, 1995/Hollidaysburg, Pa.: An escaped "pet" monkey grabbed a kitchen knife and cigarette lighter, holding police at bay for nearly two hours. The monkey ran through the house and bit two women. Animal control caught the monkey with a snare. The monkey later died in a cage.

January 1, 1995/Kansas City, Mo.: A "pet" chimpanzee bit a 7-year-old girl, causing her to have to undergo rabies treatment. Authorities had received numerous complaints that the chimpanzee ran loose and had attacked several people.

November 30, 1994/Boca Raton, Fla.: A 5-inch "pet" marmoset, smuggled into a restaurant in a bag, escaped and bit a diner on the ear.

November 11, 1994/San Francisco, Calif.: The San Francisco Zoo alerted area residents to be on the watch for an escaped patas monkey.

August 20, 1994/Tulane, La.: Residents began calling authorities after spotting monkeys near their homes. The monkeys were among 28 pigtailed macaques who had escaped from the Delta Regional Primate Research Center.

August 9, 1994/Surprise, Ariz.: A 4-year-old boy developed an eye infection after being bitten and scratched by two macaques. The boy’s mother had obtained the monkeys as "pets" three weeks earlier.

August 2, 1994/Knoxville, Tenn.: Residents were warned that an escaped "pet" spider monkey might bite. The animal got loose in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

August 2, 1994/New Smyrna Beach, Fla.: Five Japanese macaques donated to Ashby Acres Wildlife Park by the Pittsburgh Zoo were found to be infected with herpes B.

June 30, 1994/Phoenix, Ariz.: A "pet" Java macaque escaped from his backyard cage and ran throughout a residential neighborhood for 17 hours before he was recaptured.

February 1, 1994/Kansas City, Mo.: A "pet" chimpanzee jumped on and bit a man, causing injuries that needed medical treatment.

December 14, 1993/Belleville, Ontario: A Japanese macaque carrying a virus that could harm humans was found after escaping from an animal shelter 10 days earlier.

August 26, 1993/Johannesburg, South Africa: A vervet infected with a virus was found one week after escaping from a university laboratory.

July 11, 1993/Rolling Meadows, Ill.: A leashed guenon grabbed an 11-year-old girl’s leg and inflicted three bite wounds that required stitches. Animal control had tried unsuccessfully to confiscate the monkey years earlier, after police alleged that the animal had bitten several people.

July 9, 1993/Niagara, N.Y.: A man was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where he received stitches to close bite wounds from his "pet" patas monkey.

June 20, 1993/Tel Aviv, Israel: An escaped "pet" macaque darted into a neighbor’s home and caused a ruckus. The family fled and called police. An officer was bitten on the arm while attempting to catch the animal.

December 15, 1992/Kiryat Motzkin/Israel: A 10-year-old boy was bitten by one of two monkeys who escaped from a children’s zoo.

November 4, 1992/Jerusalem, Israel: A 14-month-old baby was seriously bitten and scratched in a public park by a monkey who had escaped from a cage.

August 24, 1992/Inman, S.C.: A 78-year-old woman hanging sheets on a clothesline in her backyard was attacked twice by one of three chimpanzees who had escaped from Hollywild Animal Park. The woman was repeatedly knocked to the ground and rolled around by the 100-pound chimp. She was treated for minor injuries at a medical center.

July 15, 1992/New York, N.Y.: A leashed monkey slapped and scratched a subway clerk on the head when a man attempted to bring him into the subway station.

July 6, 1992/Miami, Fla.: Police warned area residents of rogue rhesus and Java macaques who had bitten a toddler, attacked a police officer, and terrorized a suburban parking lot. One monkey was shot and killed.

May 8, 1992/Norcross, Ga.: A 2-year-old squirrel monkey kept in a cage at a pet shop bit a teenager.

February 1, 1992/Fashion Island, Calif.: A "pet" monkey belonging to a man accused of trying to sell tiger and lion cubs from the back of a convertible bit a woman.

July 25, 1991/Jefferson, Ark.: An animal handler filed a $100 million claim against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services because he allegedly contracted a deadly virus when he was scratched by a macaque while working at the National Center for Toxicological Research.

October 23, 1990/St. Petersburg, Fla.: An escaped "pet" capuchin ran into a neighbor’s home, grabbed food in the kitchen, darted outside, and bit a woman as she grabbed him.

July 7, 1990/Southeast Portland, Ore.: Two leashed and collared chimpanzees went out of control during a Circus Gatti performance. They dragged the trainer into the stands and pulled a child from her seat and onto the arena floor, then mauled her.

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Saturday, June 20, 2009

Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey Circus, May Not be Able to Show




The circus is back in Las Vegas. The Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Circus arrived Tuesday night for their annual visit, but this year is different. The circus is awaiting a decision by a federal judge about whether it can continue to use endangered elephants in its act.

Animal welfare groups have alleged for many years that what Ringling Brothers does is inherently cruel to elephants. Now, they're waiting to see if a federal judge agrees with them. They hope this is the end of the line for more than a century of animal cruelty. The Ringling folks are just as confident that the show will go on.

Read the court documents

"We're trying our best to make sure these endangered species are around for future generations," said Ringling animal handler Ryan Henning.

As the Ringling rail cars were unloaded Tuesday evening, 12 hours before their scheduled arrival, Henning expressed the same sentiments his employer has emphasized in recent years -- mainly, how well circus elephants are treated and how much the big pachyderms enjoy living out of boxcars.

"They enjoy it. They travel very comfortably. I would say they travel better than the people in the show. They've got it made," he said.

"I don't know how you can have a traveling elephant, 11 months out of the year stationed on a train, have their feet being chained, and have their feet be okay. It's impossible," said animal activist Linda Faso.

Faso has helped organize protests against every circus to hit Las Vegas for the last two decades and has another one scheduled for Thursday night outside the Orleans Arena, where the Ringling performances will be held.

Faso has long argued it is inherently cruel to endangered Asian elephants to force them into the life of a traveling carny, and the proof is in their feet.

Some of the most pointed testimony to emerge in a six week federal trial focused on the feet of Ringling elephants. Nearly all of the animals have foot problems to one degree or another, not only because they spend most of their lives in chains, either in rail cars or on asphalt parking lots like the Orleans, but also because elephants simply aren't built to perform the kind of tricks they are taught for the circus.

Former Ringling elephant handler Tom Rider was one of the star witnesses in the federal trial. He told the court there is only one way to get large, intelligent creatures to don funny outfits and perform amusing tricks, and that's thru the use of pain and fear, as manifested in the use of the infamous bullhook. Ringling has compared the bullhook to a leash for dogs, but video captured around the country shows otherwise.

Circus owner Kenneth Feld of Las Vegas even admitted as much during the trial. ""What came out of the trial was a lot of evidence, like when Kenneth Feld said ‘I've seen all my handlers strike the elephants.' They hadn't admitted that in years," said Rider.

The federal trial ended in March. The judge could decide that Ringling can no longer put elephants on the road and in the show. Even if the circus prevails in the case, the groups that sued believe they've already made an impact.

At the Las Vegas unloading, the traditional bullhooks were nowhere to be seen, replaced instead by smaller, less menacing devices. It's not enough, animal groups say. "I would assume that in various cities there are a lot more people watching now, so they are being more careful, and it's just behind the scenes. I'm sure the elephants are being chained still, in boxcars which the general public doesn't get to see," said Nicole Paquett, attorney for Born Free USA.

Paquett says the federal judge has scheduled more oral arguments to be held in July, so a decision won't happen until after those sessions. But can Ringling carry on without its elephants? The animal welfare folks say yes and they point to the success of Cirque De Soleil as an example."

Source

Friday, June 19, 2009

Shaved Baby Chimp's Face, Gini Valbuena

Source

Baby Eli at the big Cat Habitat

News Channel 8 photo by JIM HOCKETT
Photo found here


Baby Noah with his face shaved just like all of the others before him.

Here is a photo of a Baby chimp at the age of 4 months old, and as you can see, they do have hair on their faces at 4 months old.
Photo Found here with the label of 4 months old
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As you can from this link that Kay Rosaire, is in fact a circus act, a freak show. Page here

Story-

Published: June 17, 2009

Related Links

Quote-"SARASOTA - His name is Eli.

He is 4 months old and covered in hair.

When this wide-eyed wonder was born his natural mother didn't want anything to do with him. So his owners in California put out a call for help to the small group of experts across the country able to raise a chimpanzee from birth.

And Big Cat Habitat stepped up by adding Eli to its menagerie of rescues and animals in need.

But veteran trainer and sanctuary owner Kay Rosaire said unlike her lions, tigers and bears, Eli needs care around the clock.

Rosaire said Eli wears diapers, drinks several bottles of Infamil baby formula every day and eats vitamins to help his 8-pound body reach the 200 pounds he may weigh someday.

Rosaire said she welcomes any donations of baby goods, from toys to diapers, for Eli.

And Big Cat Habitat, 7101 Palmer Blvd., plans to hold a special chimpanzee baby shower for Eli at 6 p.m. Saturday. The program will include a tour of the sanctuary. Cost is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $6 for children. A free educational program on chimpanzees will follow at 7. Proceeds from the fundraiser go to care for the animals."

The event marks the last show for Big Cat Habitat until the weather cools down in the fall.

Reporter Jackie Barron can be reached at (813) 221-5708."

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Oxford University Reveals Primate Experimental Data

OXFORD University has agreed to release information about primate experiments, following a challenge by an animal rights organisation.

The university initially refused to release the information following a 2007 request under the Freedom of Information Act by members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta).

But it has now released some of the information after an informal resolution brokered by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) during an appeal.

An ICO spokesman said: “Oxford University has disclosed some of the requested information at an informal resolution level. Some elements of the request are still being investigated and we will be ruling on that at a later date.”

A spokesman for Peta said the organisation asked for details of experiments performed on Felix, a macaque monkey who had appeared in a 2006 television documentary.

He said: “We hope this decision will allow a concerned public to learn not what researchers decide it should know but what it has a right to know.”

Source

Eli The Baby Chimp on Video, Gini Valbuena

Source
Chimp Chat-" Hello Chimp Chat readers. As you can see, the most controversial subject right now for myself and a lot of other "real" chimp lovers is this huge lie about Eli being rescued. Here is a video of him with Kay. Before you watch this I'd like to point out some facts here.
  • First off, when he is first in front of the camera, the sound he makes is not cute, that is what is called a bark, this is an aggressive sound because he is afraid
  • They mentioned the fact that he has a FT Nanny, gosh I wonder if that could possibly be Gini Valbuena with the many years of baby raising. I don't think this is something to be proud of, it only shows the abuse of buying babies and then dumping them, just to do it over and over again for 30+ years.
  • Then they take Eli out to see his friend Kira. Kira was once one of Gini's chimps that she has dumped. I meet Kira when I visited Gini's the one time. When my husband and I got out of our vehicle, Gini opened her front door and allowed Kira to come running out of the house, no leash on, no control over the animal what-so-ever. A direct violation of the USDA restrictions.
  • When they were holding Eli up in the air to visit with Kira, this is a cruel thing to do. At the age of 4 months old, a baby chimp would normally be attached to his mother. She would never take him off and hold him up in the air, that would be tooooo frightening for him. You can here him cry. Poor little guy, and these people call themselves experts? That's a joke! A real expert would want this baby to be with his mother or a surrogate mother and Adult female chimps will take care of babies that are not there's.
  • At the end of this disgusting segment they say he already lives in a trailer. I suppose they are getting him use to living in a trailer so that way when he is hauled around from state to state doing one freak show after another he is use to it.
  • The next thing you know the public will be introduced to his so called Nany, Gini Valbuena. I hope so because this will only prove that this baby Eli was a fullfillment of the breeding contract between Gini Valbueana and Connie Casey. Gini is known to trade chimps all of the time. There was another one she traded chimps for her name was daisy. She gave Connie Casey her chimp Daisy, after she couldn't make her any more money, in exchange for a baby. So with this kind of track record, there's no doubt in my mind this was a trade, as if they are old pieces of furniture. You know I never hear anything about Gini Valbuenas children, I wonder why that is? Maybe they too, have disowned her because of what she does.

Video here

Chimpanzees Observed Using 25 Different Tools


Chimp With Tool

Life for human evolution researchers was so much simpler 50 years ago. There seemed to be a clear distinction between the cognitive capacities of humans and that of all other animals. The proof: Humans made tools, other species did not. The concept was perhaps best expressed in the title of a 1949 book by British anthropologist Kenneth Oakley, Man the Tool-Maker. As late as the early 1960s, most researchers agreed with famed fossil hunter Louis Leakey that toolmaking was a uniquely human activity.

But with more and more scientific observations of primates, identifying “uniquely human” behavior has been getting harder and harder. A paper in the June Journal of Human Evolution now extends animals’ reach even further toward human abilities, reporting that wild chimpanzees can sequentially craft a set of tools for a single task. Primatologist Christophe Boesch and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, conclude that researchers might have to rethink their whole approach to the cognitive divide between humans and their primate cousins.

Back in the early 1960s, that divide was still unbreached. Then in 1964, Leakey’s protégée Jane Goodall reported that chimpanzees at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania stripped leaves off twigs and used them to fish termites out of their mounds. Score one for the chimps. But the twigs were simple tools. Unlike humans, chimpanzees didn’t have tool kits with different tool types, did they? Well, it turned out they did. And since the 1970s, chimps at sites such as Gombe, the Taï National Park in Côte d’Ivoire, and Mahale Mountains National Park in Tanzania have been observed using up to 25 different kinds of tools for different functions.

Indeed, as soon as researchers proposed new ways in which human tool use was unique, their hypotheses got shot down by new observations. Like humans, some chimps need tools to survive when food is scarce. Chimp tools can vary from region to region according to purely cultural considerations, for example, in the different ways they use leaves and branches to catch ants. And chimps can use tools to access food hidden underground, which requires mentally visualizing things they cannot directly see and then trying to access them. One of the last bastions of alleged human uniqueness has been the assumption that chimps don’t combine a number of different tools together, by using one after another in serial fashion, to attain a single, primary goal—something thought to demand great cognitive power.

In 2005, Boesch, who has been watching chimps in West Africa for many years, began working at a new chimp site, Loango National Park on the coast of Gabon. The chimps here, though they don’t crack nuts like those elsewhere, love honey. And they go to great lengths to find it, seeking out the hives of both tree-dwelling and underground bees, according to dozens of hours of observations by Boesch and his co-workers, as well as analyses of 400 tools left around beehives. The researchers found that the animals create as many as five different tool types and use them one after the other to get at the honey. On one occasion, the team observed nine chimps surrounding a large beehive in a tree and making different tool types over a period of nearly 80 minutes.

All the tools are made from tree branches or bark, but they have distinct functions: “pounders” to break open tree-bound beehives, “perforators” to locate underground beehives, “enlargers” to penetrate and enlarge a hive’s compartments, and “collectors” and “swabbers” to scoop out the honey.

Observations of chimps using such tool sets have been very rare until recently, although there have been preliminary sightings at a few other sites, the team says in its report. The researchers were particularly impressed by the elaborate way in which the Loango chimps use tools to find underground beehives, which are often a meter under the ground and not directly under their openings to the surface. Boesch found that it took him 20 to 40 minutes to perform the same task, which requires, the authors say, “a precise three-dimensional sense of geometry.”

Boesch and colleagues are not claiming that chimps are as cognitively advanced as humans, of course, although they point out that chimps’ “flexible and complex” tool use is not seen in any other animal species, even though other mammals and some birds use tools as well. And there is still one frontier that chimps have not been observed to cross: They do not use tools to make other tools, as even the earliest humans did when they used one stone to fashion a tool out of another.

Nevertheless, the new observations suggest that the key difference between chimp and human toolmaking ability might be “one of quantity rather than quality,” the authors write. That makes sense to at least one tool expert I sent the paper to, archaeologist Dietrich Stout of University College London (who is soon to move to Emory University in Atlanta). “It is past time to give up on the idea that there is going to be some simple, qualitative statement that fully encapsulates what is unique about human tool use,” Stout told me. "

—Michael Balter

Credit: Christophe Boesch/MPI EVA

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Hank the Chimpanzee Turns 41


Photograph

Hank the Chimpanzee, resident of the Chattanooga Zoo, will celebrate his 41st birthday on Saturday, June 20 from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. at the Zoo's location in Warner Park. Join the entire Zoo staff as they celebrate Hank's Day with games, crafts and even free birthday cake (while supplies last).

Hank's Day is one of the favorite Zoo events among families, children and our staff,� said Executive Director Darde Long. It's a fun-filled day for everyone who attends and it's also very exciting for our chimp of honor, she said.

Hank won't be the only primate on the premises. Curious George will be on site to greet all attendees. Curious George is appearing as a partnership between the Zoo and The Creative Discovery Museum who will be unveiling their new summer Curious George exhibit from June 13 - Sept 27. 2009. It's great because after guests visit the real primates, they can go to the Creative Discovery Museum to explore another monkey as he makes his Chattanooga debut, said Ms. Long.

Both Chattanooga Zoo members and Creative Discovery Museum members can receive $1 off admission at the respective institutions now through Sept. 27.

Hank's Day is open to the public and is free for members and Director's Circle members with proof of membership card. For more information call 423 697-1319.

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Website

Research Facility Goes Underground

Animal facility goes underground
Posted by Bob Grant of TheScientist.com

The University of Iowa has gotten the green light to build a subterranean vivarium that will house experimental animals to be used in biomedical research and offer an extra measure of protection from animal rights extremists.

The Iowa Bard of Regents approved $11.2 million for the roughly 35,000 square foot facility -- which will lie under a grassy courtyard bordered by three research buildings -- last week. "Security is a huge issue with regard to biomedical research," the university's vice president for research, Jordan Cohen, told the regents, according to the Des Moines Register.

Image: By Aaron Logan
Paul Cooper, director of the university's Office of Animal Resources, told The Scientist that while protecting the facility against attacks from animal rights groups wasn't the primary impetus for putting the lab underground, its underground location "is an extra measure of security." In 2004, animal rights activists broke into animal research laboratories on the University of Iowa campus, destroying computers and laboratory equipment and stealing experimental animals. Damages sustained during the attack, for which the Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility, cost the university about $425,000.

Cooper noted that the vivarium will house mainly mice but that other species, such as sheep, pigs, rabbits, and non-human primates, will also reside there. He added that its centralized location will aid biomedical researchers. "It's something that a large research institution would prefer," said Cooper, who is also the university's attending veterinarian, "instead of having a facility here and a facility there."

The university decided to add the underground vivarium to a $122.5 million plan to build the Iowa Institute for Biomedical Discovery (IIBD) on the campus, which the board approved last year. The shell space for the animal housing facility will be completed before the IIBD is fully constructed to allow builders access to the courtyard.

Construction crews have not yet broken ground on either the IIBD or the vivarium, but Cooper said that both construction projects are slated to begin within the next six to twelve months. The IIBD will likely be completed by 2013 and the vivarium shell will be outfitted with animal housing facilities, cage washing facilities, an aseptic surgery space, and other features at some later date. "

Source

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Third Chimpanzee, Second Orangutan


Are we the "third chimp" or the "second orang"? Controversial new research suggests that we may be more closely related to the orang-utan than realised (Image: Newspix / Rex Features)

Image found here

THESE days, we tend to accept without question that humans are "the third chimpanzee". The term, coined by author Jared Diamond, refers to the notion that our closest relatives are the two chimpanzee species - the common chimp and the bonobo. But could we actually be "the second orang" - more closely related to orang-utans than chimps?

That is the controversial claim made this week by Jeffrey Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and John Grehan of the Buffalo Museum of Science in New York (Journal of Biogeography, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2009.02141.x, in press)

The idea flies in the face of mainstream scientific opinion, not least a wealth of DNA evidence pointing to our close relationship to chimps. Schwartz and Grehan do not deny the similarity between human and chimp genomes, but argue that the DNA evidence is problematic and that traditional taxonomy unequivocally tells us that our closest living relatives are orang-utans.

The researchers say the evidence of genetic similarity between humans and chimps is problematic

Human evolution and phylogenomics researchers have so far given the paper a rough reception. Some declined to comment on it, saying they did not want to dignify the paper. One described it as "preposterous nonsense" and another as "loopy".

Others were less dismissive, though, agreeing that at least some of the ideas were worth discussing, if only to confirm the overwhelming evidence in favour of the orthodox view.

The Journal of Biogeography's editors defended the decision to publish the paper, arguing that it is the best way to subject Schwartz and Grehan's argument to proper scientific scrutiny. Editor Robert Whittaker told New Scientist he had done some "soul searching" but eventually decided it was best to air the ideas.

In the orthodox account of human origins, our species belongs to a group of African apes that also includes chimps, bonobos and gorillas. Chimps and bonobos are our closest living relatives, sharing a common ancestor with us up to about 6 million years ago (see diagram). This version of events is strongly supported by DNA evidence showing that the human genome sequence is most similar to that of the chimp, followed by gorillas, with orangs the least similar of the three.

Schwartz and Grehan say that genome similarities cannot be taken as conclusive evidence of the closeness of our evolutionary relationships to the other great apes. In their scenario, around 13 million years ago, an orang-like ape lived across a huge swathe of land stretching from southern Africa to south-east Asia via southern Europe and central Asia (see map). This population evolved into different species, before extinctions in Europe and central Asia split the original geographical range and left rump populations in east Africa and south-east Asia. The African population evolved into the human lineage while the Asian one evolved into orang-utans.

In this scenario, the other African apes are a separate lineage that split off from ours long before 13 million years ago, making orangs our closest living relative and the chimps and gorillas more distant.

This claim hinges on two contentious arguments. One is that DNA sequence similarity is not necessarily an indicator of evolutionary relatedness. The other is that, biologically, humans are more like orangs than chimps.

The first of these is the most problematic, as almost everybody accepts genome sequences as the most reliable indicator of evolutionary relatedness. Humans share 98.4 per cent of their DNA with chimps, 97.5 per cent with gorillas and 96.5 per cent with orang-utans. This is widely taken as unassailable proof.

Grehan, however, argues that this is not scientifically justified. He points out that traditional taxonomy makes a distinction between two types of similarity - "derived novelties" and "primitive retentions". Derived novelties are traits shared by two closely related species and are taken to have evolved in a recent common ancestor. Primitive retentions are older traits with a deeper evolutionary past shared by a larger group of species.

The problem with molecular systematics, says Grehan, is it fails to distinguish between the two. "It does not matter that more DNA similarities may be found between humans and chimpanzees if these similarities are really primitive retentions," he says. The fact that humans and orang-utans are less genetically similar could be because orangs evolved more rapidly after splitting from a common ancestor with hominins.

Nonsense, says Maryellen Ruvolo, a human evolutionary biologist at Harvard University. "We know a lot about how DNA sequences change over time," and can distinguish between primitive retentions and derived novelties. Furthermore, she argues, the latest DNA sequence information indicates that humans share more derived novelties with chimps than with orang-utans.

David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard, agrees. "The molecular data overwhelmingly reject the notion that orang-utans are our closest relatives," he says.

The other half of the argument is a taxonomic analysis comparing the anatomies of humans, chimps, bonobos, orangs and 14 extinct species of ape. Based on this, Grehan and Schwartz argue that Homo species, orangs and australopithecines cluster into one "clade" with chimps and gorillas in another.

They say that many anatomical features we share with orang-utans appear to be recent novelties rather than primitive retentions. "There are a few features uniquely shared with chimps, but the bulk come out as [shared with] orangs," says Schwartz.

There are a few features shared with chimps but the bulk come out as shared with orangs

These include features of anatomy, reproductive biology and behaviour. For example, among the great apes only humans and orangs have thick tooth enamel, long hair, male facial hair, concealed ovulation, a preference for private, face-to-face mating, and an ability to construct shelters and beds. Mainstream opinion is these are due to parallel evolution.

According to Robin Crompton, an anatomist at the University of Liverpool, UK, Grehan and Schwartz's selection of species for phylogenetic analysis is "strange", and misses out key extinct species such as Proconsul, considered to be the ancestor of all great apes. Even so, the paper appears to contain some good ideas, he says. "The biogeographic ideas are really quite interesting."

Ultimately, Grehan and Schwartz accept their claims are extraordinary but say they are worthy of proper consideration. "It's up for testing and debate," says Schwartz.

Editorial: In praise of scientific heresy

Chimps still new to the family

The idea that chimps are our closest living relatives is so entrenched that it is easy to forget that the notion was only accepted into the story of human evolution relatively recently.

Darwin himself proposed that humans evolved in Africa and shared a common ancestor with chimps and gorillas. Later biologists disagreed, though, arguing that the human lineage was so different from the other great apes that it must have been evolving on a separate trajectory for many millions of years.

In the mid-1960s, palaeontologists Elwyn Simons and David Pilbeam proposed that an extinct ape called Ramapithecus, which lived in what is now India and Pakistan up to about 8.5 million years ago, was a close relative of humans and possibly a direct ancestor. This gained widespread acceptance until new specimens showed it had an orang-utan-like face, whereupon the idea was quickly dropped.

Around the same time, molecular techniques started hinting at a close affinity between humans and chimps. This has been the orthodox position for more than 30 years.

Not everybody accepts it, however. Jeffrey Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has been arguing since the early 1980s that orangs are our closest living relatives (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/308501a0). His latest research paper continues that theme."

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Florida, Increasing Exotic Animals Laws


Wildlife Survival Sanctuary photo

TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission may decide this week to stop people from keeping cougars, cheetahs, hyenas and other wild animals as pets.

Florida's "Class I" list of banned pets already includes 22 species, including chimpanzees, hippopotamuses, lions and elephants. Exhibiting or selling Class I wildlife requires a permit; keeping Class I animals as pets is prohibited unless the animal was already in possession on Aug. 1, 1980.

The state wildlife commission, which meets today and tomorrow in Crystal River, will vote on whether to expand the Class I list to include cougars; panthers; cheetahs; hyenas; aardwolfs; gaurs, an ox-like animal; and Siamangs, a species of gibbon.

Additionally, the commissioners may ban people from taking fox, skunks, bats, raccoons, and white-tailed deer from the wild in order to keep them as pets.

Nick Atwood, campaigns coordinator of the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida, applauded the proposed measures as a step toward his group's goal of eliminating the exotic animal trade in Florida.

But some pet owners are protesting, Atwood said.

"There has been a lot of controversy over adding cougars and cheetahs to Class I," he said. "A lot of people who own them don't want them" to be restricted.

On the flip side, the proposed rule would lift a blanket prohibition on keeping American alligators at home. It would establish new regulations for keeping the animals, setting strict cage and handling-experience requirements.

The new rule increases requirements for keeping a range of other animals, including giraffes, jackals, wolves, wildebeest and several primate species. Keeping these animals would require a permit.

"In recent years in Florida there have been several tragic reminders why exotic and wild animals don't make good pets," Atwood said.

"The rule changes under consideration by the FWC will help to ensure the humane treatment of captive wildlife and protect the public from potentially dangerous animals."

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382."

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Gay Animals Changing Evolution?

Animals that engage in same-sex sexual behavior may be acting in accord with adaptational strategies rather than against them--and bending the way we think about evolution

Homosexual behavior seems pointedly un-Darwinian. An animal that doesn't pass along genes by mating with the opposite sex at every, well, conceivable opportunity, seems to be at an evolutionary disadvantage. So what’s in it for the 450-plus species that go for same-sex sex?


Two evolutionary biologists from University of California, Riverside, set out to answer that question in a paper published today in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

"It's been observed a lot," says Nathan Bailey, a post-doctoral researcher at U.C. Riverside and lead study author, of same-sex sexual behavior in animals. "But it took people a long time to put it in an evolutionary context."

After studying dozens of published articles on the topic, Bailey and his colleague Marlene Zuk concluded that, in addition to being an adaptational strategy, "these behaviors can be a force," Bailey said. "They create a context in which selection can occur [differently] within a population."

In the Laysan albatross, for example, previous research has shown that a third of all bonded pairs in a Hawaii colony are two females. This behavior helps the birds, whose colony has far more females than males, by allowing them to share parenting responsibilities. It also gives more stability to the offspring of males, already bonded to a female, who mate opportunistically with females in a same-sex couple. Such a dynamic, then may force gradual changes in behavior and even physical appearance of the birds, the authors note.

Other researchers, however, aren't convinced that everything must fit into the evolutionary, adaptive rubric. "You have to think outside of that," says Paul Vasey, who studies Japanese macaque monkeys as an associate professor at the University of Lethbridge in Canada.

His work has shown that in female macaque monkeys at least, same-sex sexual behavior doesn't seem to have any adaptational advantage, which "doesn't jibe with how people want to think about it," he says. But, he concludes, "You can't impose your perspective on the species you're studying. Attempt to understand the world on its own terms."

What does all this mean for discussions about human homosexuality? To be sure, says Bailey, "there can be crosstalk" between the disciplines of human and animal study, and both arenas promise to be fertile ground for further research.

Source

Chimps Love Music

Mysore, June 17 (PTI) In the first of its kind experiment in the country, moody chimpanzees at the Mysore Zoo are getting some music therapy to lift their spirits.
After treating many patients through music, a neurosurgeon has tried the therapy on three male and two female apes at the zoo.

During a visit to the Mysore zoo sometime back, Anil Singh, who is working with Apollo Hospital, had observed some chimpanzees behaving in a rude manner.

After the idea of trying out this therapy on the apes struck him, he discussed it with the Zoo Director and started the therapy.

Singh, assisted by three music experts said the chimps seemed to be enjoying the ring tones and one of them who was brought from a circus was even seen dancing to the ring tones.

The excitement among the chimps was noticed by Zoo keeper Shankar also. PTI

Source

New Animal Adventure Series




A team of scientists from Anglia Ruskin University’s Department of Life Sciences - led by Animal Behaviour and Ecology expert Guy Norton - has helped with the filming of a four part series in Africa for Five, due for transmission beginning 21 June (8.00pm).

Among The Apes gets up close and personal to four of the best known primate species. It features three apes -mountain gorillas, orang-utans and chimpanzees - and baboons, a monkey species living in the woody and grassy African habitats similar to the home of early man.

As Director of the Animal Behaviour Research Unit (ABRU) in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania, Guy Norton assisted the series presenter, the well known primatologist Charlotte Uhlenbroek, with her observations of baboons. These unique animals will be seen in the second programme in the series on 28 June (8.00pm) in their natural habitat within the Mikumi National Park.

In the series Charlotte reveals the complex social and sexual dynamics of man’s closest evolutionary and ecological relatives. Her adventure was made possible through her working with those who live closest to the animals – the peoples, rangers and scientists on the ground. In the programmes, she is fully briefed by them, before making her own first, crucial approaches to the animals. Charlotte approached them closely to get an insight into their daily and personal lives. The series draw on Charlotte’s knowledge of living and working with these amazing animals. Such familiarity with primates has been Charlotte’s life-long dream since her earliest chimpanzee studies in the forests of Gombe, Tanzania.

Charlotte wore hidden body cameras and used a tiny hand held camera to record her experiences as they happened. Each programme unfolds Charlotte’s developing relationships with the animals in real time, with immediacy and closeness. Charlotte camped out in the African bush with the troop of baboons studied at ABRU and in other programmes she built a nest in an attempt to sleep high in the jungle canopy like a chimpanzee, learned the ropes – quite literally – at a school for orphaned orang-utans, and foraged for food with mountain gorillas.

Guy Norton first met Charlotte in the 1980s when she was a school girl living with her UN employed parents in Tanzania. He said, ‘We showed wild baboons up close to Charlotte even before she began her studies of chimpanzees at Gombe. Charlotte has an excellent knowledge of primates and a very real appreciation of the importance of long-term studies such as our work on baboons. Like Sir David Attenborough she understands the problems of conserving the habitats and populations of such species and how necessary behavioural and ecological work like ours is to further such conservation. I like to think that Charlotte’s early experience with our research might have helped inform her career. She is an excellent presenter and it was a pleasure to work alongside her on this filming project. I expect that this series will confirm her position as the potential successor to Sir David Attenborough.’

Anglia Ruskin University’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Michael Thorne said: ‘We are proud of the three decades of work that the team at ABRU have put into the study of baboons in Tanzania; and delighted that Guy Norton has helped to facilitate this very close contact between Charlotte and the baboons in their open countryside setting. It is expected that the series will yet again change the way we view primates in their natural world – and that we will all learn something from their behaviour along the way.’

The research and conservation activities of ABRU and the research activities of all staff contributes to the Animal and Environmental courses offered by the Department of Life Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University. Subjects range from Animal Behaviour, Ecology and Conservation to Marine Biology and Natural History; and from Animal Welfare to Zoology. For further information about these courses contact 0845 271 3333
or visit www.anglia.ac/lifesciences

Among The Apes is a Firefly production for Five.
Series Producer is Kathryn Taylor
Executive Producer is Alex Sutherland

Photo: Guy Norton working beside a sub-adult male baboon called Ubawa

Anglia Ruskin University

Anglia Ruskin University is passionate about the advancement of knowledge and the education of students, and we pride ourselves on taking university education in imaginative new directions. Our key contribution is to the enhancement of social, cultural and economic well being. We have two main campuses, in Cambridge and Chelmsford, with over 24,000 students and 1,000 academic staff.

ABRU

The Animal Behaviour Research Unit (ABRU) was established in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania in 1974. ABRU’s research into the behaviour and ecology of yellow baboons is now into its fourth decade. It is only one of a handful of long-term primate field studies, like those of Jane Goodall on chimpanzees or Daine Fossey on gorillas, in the world. The team is now observing the great-granddaughters of the original baboon matriarchs that were the focus of the initial study. Central to the study are issues concerning dominance, reproductive success, and foraging feeding and processing habits.

Although ABRU is best known for its primate studies, it is increasingly involved in ecological monitoring and other conservation and management related work. For example, ABRU is now involved in studies on the African Elephant and one of the most valuable woods in the world, African Ebony (used for making woodwind instruments).

Guy Norton has been working with ABRU for 31 years. He is currently its director in addition to his role as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Life Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University. Up to three research assistants and two research rangers are based permanently at the ABRU field station. The station’s facilities include accommodation for staff, visiting scholars and research students plus a library and a small laboratory.

ABRU collaborates with many scientists and institutions within Tanzania and works particularly closely with Tanzania National Parks. All of ABRU work is focused on Mikumi National Park, one of the largest parks in East Africa and the most protected diverse part of the Selous system. The Selous Game Reserve continuous with Mikumi is Africa's largest protected wildlife reserve and a World Heritage Site

Ultimately, it is hoped that ABRU will pass into the hands of life scientists and conservationists from Tanzania for the continuity and stability of its ongoing work in relation to baboons, habitat studies, and the long-term study of elephants. "

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