Aug 21 2008
From BBC News:
A mystery monkey caused uproar at a busy train station in Tokyo, Japan.
Police tried to capture the creature with nets, but it climbed down and ran away through the crowds of commuters.
It remains unclear where the monkey came from - it could be a stray pet, or a wild monkey from a mountain area near Tokyo.
Aug 19 2008
A couple of Monkey World supporters are holding a little car boot sale near the entrance gates on Sunday 24 August 2008, to raise money for the Jim Cronin Memorial Fund and the monkeys.
Jul 22 2008
From Bournemouth Echo:
IT was a dream he did not live to see come true, but the founder of Monkey World would have been justly proud of the centre’s latest achievement.
The wife of the late Jim Cronin, Dr Alison Cronin, has this week returned from Vietnam where, after six years of work, a 64-hectare rehabilitation centre for golden-cheeked gibbons rescued from the sickening smuggling trade has been opened.
Alison said: “All those years ago Jim turned to me when we saw the first illegal shipment of gibbons in Thailand and said We should do something about this’.”
Working with the Vietnamese authorities, a project began to establish a primate rescue centre in the south of the country, at Cat Tien National Park.
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Jul 22 2008
Monkey World – Ape Rescue Centre is celebrating the successful completion and opening of the Dao Tien Endangered Primate Species Centre. Known for assisting governments around the world to stop the smuggling of primates from the wild, this is Monkey World’s first insitu conservation project.
Jul 16 2008
From the Great Ape Trust:
A group of orangutans who appeared in Hollywood films, television commercials and magazine advertisements is being relocated to Great Ape Trust of Iowa – a significant move that begins to close the curtain in the United States on the decades-long use of orangutans in the entertainment industry. Great Ape Trust, a scientific research facility in Des Moines, Iowa dedicated to the study of primate intelligence and behavior, will triple its orangutan population from three to nine.
The first of the new residents, 3-year-old Rocky and his 19-year-old mother Katy, arrived safely at Great Ape Trust on Saturday, July 12, from the Los Angeles area, where they had been privately owned by Steve Martin’s Working Wildlife, co-owned by Steve and Donna Martin. Their company specializes in providing trained animals for entertainment and advertising.
In discussions with Dr. Robert Shumaker, director of the orangutan research program at Great Ape Trust, the Martins decided to donate these orangutans to The Trust and discontinue their use of orangutans in entertainment.
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Jul 13 2008
From VietNamNet Bridge:
The Nam Cat Tien National Park in southern Dong Nai province on July 12 put into operation a wildlife rescue centre, specializing in primate.
The centre, covering 30 ha of land inside original forests on the Tien (Fairy) island, has been entrusted to step in when illegally-caged primates or primate trafficking are found.
It will also conduct research on rare primates’ habitat to farm rescued animals in the natural environment before freeing them into the forests.
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Jul 01 2008
From Telegraph:
The Indian girl has become virtually inseparable from an Indian Langur named Ramu which her parents adopted when an attack by stray dogs left him orphaned.
Parents Anil and Rashmi Mehta now see Ramu as the perfect addition to their family.
“Ramu has made all the difference to our family, I feel as if he is part of my life like Diksha,” says Mrs Mehta from their home in Bharauch town in the north-western Gujarat state.
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Jun 19 2008
The Great Ape Trust in Iowa is returning to normal after the floods which caused so much disruption.
The ape homes are now clean and dry after a heroic effort by staff.
Jun 18 2008
From the Guardian:
British psychologists working in the forests of western Uganda have recorded the first evidence of sexual politics influencing the mating calls of our closest primate ancestors.
Researchers spent 10 months in the Budongo forest observing and recording calls from a community of 78 chimpanzees, only eight of whom were adult males.
They found that chimpanzees varied wildly in the extent of their calls during mating, but noticed a pattern that had never been spotted before. Audio recordings revealed that females were more vocal during sex if there were other high-ranking males around, but that they toned the noise down significantly when aggressive females were nearby.
The findings suggest that chimpanzees are able to use their calls for more complex social communication than previously thought.
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Jun 13 2008
The Great Ape trust of Iowa has been caught up in the floods. Fortunately, all the apes are safe in their well-designed buildings. All non-essential personnel have been evacuated.
The trust has contingency plans to evacuate the apes to zoos temporarily in the event of an emergency.
It looks like the worst is over, and things are beginning to return to normal. It’ll take a while to clean up the damage though.