Scoop on Primates

My husband and I just returned from Mexico where we spent a week in the Yucatan jungle playing with orphan spider monkeys at a sanctuary in Riviera Maya called " The Jungle Place ". The sanctuary is home to seventeen spider monkeys, all rescued and raised with love by founders Heidi and Joel.  This couple's enthusiasm and passion for spider monkeys is contagious and one cannot spend time with them without soon becoming their friends. Spider monkeys are slender with long limbs, small faces, beautiful brown or grey/blue eyes and a long and strong prehensile tail that helps them keep their balance as they move from branch to branch in the canopy of the rain forest where they live.  Their coarse fur varies in color from gold brown to red to dark brown or black.  Some have a white patch on their belly.  They have four fingers on their hands (the thumb is just a tiny stump) but they do have a thumb on their feet.  Males and females do not differ much in size (a...

School teachers!  Help us raise awareness on the plight of the great apes & monkey species endangered due to poaching, deforestation & illegal pet trade. Contest open to: children 5 to 10 years of age Dates: September 1 through September 30 1 st Prize: Framed Bee picture 2 nd Prize: Plush monkey 3 rd Prize: Book Rules :  Drawings must be 8.5 x 11 in size and r epresent a monkey or great ape . Indicate child’s first name, age at bottom of drawing. Indicate name and address of school also at bottom of drawing. The best 10 submitted drawings will be featured on the SCOOPONPRIMATES blog. Prizes will be awarded on October 15 and sent to the school teacher. Email your drawing to: sylnande@ymail.com

As I did last year, I want to celebrate International Primate Day, this September 1 and invite you to do the same. Primates come in a lot of shapes and forms.  They live in many diverse countries and form societies with very specific rules. When I mention to people that I spend my weekends caring for primates, I usually get two reactions: a smile or a grimace; yet everyone does ask questions and seems genuinely intrigued.   I find it fascinating that most humans seem to be divided into those who respect primates and those who dislike them.  Seeing ourselves in primates can be a source of awe and wonder or a nasty reminder that we may not be as special as we would like to be. International Primate Day is about awareness on the sad plight of a lot of primates in the world. According to the IUCN report (2008-2010), there are 25 primate species currently on the brink of extinction - these include lemurs, gibbons, gorillas, bonobos, guenons and of course orangutans. ...

Enrichment can be defined as any activity that helps an individual to live a better life.  Introducing your children to fine books, bringing them to the theatre, encouraging their artistic endeavours or to think on their own to solve practical problems are great ways to enrich their lives and develop their brains. In the wild, animals find themselves in many situations that require them to adapt and find solutions to daily life problems.  In order to eat more termites, a chimpanzee somewhere once came up with the idea of delicately introducing a twig in a termite mound to collect more with less effort.  This required an ability to observe the object of desire, state a problem clearly, come to a conclusion on how best to solve the problem at hand and thereby use what was readily available in the environment to reach the ultimate goal. All this thinking makes a chimp's life much richer than if all he had to do was wait for his daily platter of termites to be served. Co...

A new study published by St Andrews University reveals that chimpanzees (who are apes, not monkeys) can learn from watching videos. Chimps who were shown a video of a trained chimp making a rake-like tool to grab food outside of its enclosure, were able to create a similar tool to grab their own food reward. The video tutorial proved that chimps are able to learn in a social context, from one another. However, those who watched the tutorial continued to build a long rake-like tool even when the grape outside their enclosure did not require a long twig.  Those who did not watch the video were more successful at grabbing the closer piece of fruit.  This demonstrates that social learning can, to some extent, repress creativity. Here is a link to the full article " Chimps learn from watching videos ".

According to this report from UNEP, gorillas are more than ever endangered and could become extinct within the next 15 years. It is everyone's responsibility to raise awareness about this issue and lobby for ethical business practices that will lead to economic growth in the DRC as well as in Rwanda thereby reducing poverty and providing the human population there alternatives to poaching and warfare. For those interested, the complete UNEP report is available on-line.

Giant African snail farms are being considered as a solution to curb down the bushmeat trade that continuously decimate the gorilla population at the border of Nigeria and Cameroon. What people need is an easy source of protein that will discourage them from pursuing the illegal trade of primate meat. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has been working closely with the Nigerian government to do just that - give local population access to a sustainable source of protein. The International Development Research Centre has led research projects in Nigeria since the late 1990s in order to combat malnutrition in a population deprived of the bare necessities and for whom dairy products are not commonly available.  Their findings concluded that the giant African snail was a natural local resource that would address population needs through systematic farming. Nutrition experts say that giant African snails are made of 15% protein, 2.4% fat and 80% water.  They are also very ...