It's Not Fair To Bring A New Monkey Into This Messed Up World!

It's a baby ape for Lincoln Park
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47th gorilla is born at North Side zoo
By William Mullen
Tribune staff reporter
July 27, 2005
Good news came in a small package to Lincoln Park Zoo Tuesday morning when keepers arrived at the apehouse and discovered that Kowali, a 27-year-old lowland gorilla, was holding her newborn baby.
The zoo had been expecting Kowali to give birth for the last two weeks. She chose to do so sometime between 5 p.m. Monday, when keepers locked the building and went home, and 7 a.m. Tuesday, when they arrived for work.
"The baby was already dry and cleaned off. That means the birth probably occurred several hours earlier," said Andy Henderson, an apehouse supervisor who first found Kowali at 7 a.m. She was sitting placidly in the indoor habitat she shares with the father, Kwan, and two other adult females, Bulera and Madini.
It was Kowali's fifth baby but the first for 16-year-old Kwan, who a few years ago was featured in a Hollywood movie, "Return to Me" starring Minnie Driver. The movie was partially filmed in the zoo.
"It is an important birth in that it is Kwan's first offspring," said Sue Margulis, the zoo's curator of primates. "There are about 360 lowland gorillas in captivity, and it is important that genetically each one is represented in the next generation. Now Kwan is successfully passing on his genes."
He is younger than most zoo gorilla fathers, as zoos usually wait until males are about 20 before they are allowed to mate with fertile females. Kwan was given a group of older females to lead when he first came to the zoo at age 9, but the females were always on birth control so they wouldn't become pregnant.
"He was just too immature to take on the duties of being a silverback father," said Margulis.
But last year, she said, keepers thought Kwan had begun showing maturity beyond his years. They thought he could handle fatherhood, and they also hoped that bringing a newborn into the loose-knit group would draw all four of the adults into a closer bond. Taken off birth control, Kowali became pregnant almost immediately.
"She is doing everything she should do as a mother," Margulis said. "The most important thing is that she was nursing right away, and the baby looks strong and is grabbing well on to Kowali, so, so far everything looks just about perfect."
Kwan also has shown all the behaviors of a responsible gorilla father, she said.
Gorilla males don't usually take part in caring for the baby but are vigilant in protecting the mother from other animals.
"This morning, as we do every morning, we got the gorillas to go into their off-viewing holding area for training. Usually we separate the adults, but this morning Kowali wanted to stay near Kwan, so we kept them together. He was very protective of her, shooing away Madini, who was pestering Kowali for a look at the baby."
Kowali keeps the baby so close to her chest that it may take several days before keepers can get a clear enough look at the infant to determine its sex, said Margulis. But in the next few months, Margulis said, Kowali likely will let Madini and Bulera help her raise the baby.
The birth was especially good news for a zoo that has been battered with bad publicity over a series of animal deaths over the last year.
The new baby is the 47th gorilla to be born at the zoo, representing the fourth generation of the breeding colony.

Monkey Woods!

Seven-year-old trained chimpanzee, Rudi, pretends to play golf during 'the animal wonder stage' at the Everland in Yongin, about 50 km (31 miles) south of Seoul, July 6, 2005. South Korea's major amusement park Everland launched a new animal show on July to attract more guests.

Mama Didn't Love Me

Zoo Director Becomes Spider Monkey's Mom
Mon Jul 25, 4:54 PM ET

WAHPETON, N.D. - With a 3 1/2-month-old baby, Kathy Diekman doesn't get a lot of sleep at night. Niko has been with her every night since his birth. Her husband, Tom Schmaltz, has moved to another room to sleep. "He's afraid he'll roll over on him," Diekman said.
When he was born April 3, Niko weighed a little more than a pound and was given only a slim chance of survival. His doctors say Diekman's nurturing has helped overcome those odds.
Niko is a different kind of baby: He is a spider monkey, and attaches himself to Diekman's hair.
Niko was abandoned at birth by his mother, CeCe. To save the baby's life, Diekman, the director of Wahpeton's Chahinkapa Zoo, became Niko's surrogate parent.
"Severe bruising indicated that she (CeCe) may have first injured him," Diekman said. "We are not entirely sure why animals abandon their young."
Zookeepers tried reintroducing Niko to his mother after separating the rest of the monkey troop, but they were unsuccessful.
"We even considered introducing him to a Gibbon who is a mother five times over. But I thought the siblings might injure him," Diekman said.
There were health problems to worry about, including finding the right infant formula for the young monkey. Dr. Tim Matz, the zoo veterinarian, and his staff have handled several late night calls, Diekman said.
Spider monkeys attach to their mother's hair for the first year of their lives. And so it is with Niko. He has become a "one person monkey."
"Niko sleeps attached to my head, and you will often see him doing that through the zoo day as well," Diekman said.
The young spider monkey is a good climber, and he enjoys toys. Diekman is always in his sight. If she ventures into another room, Niko follows.
Her mother, husband and their daughter can take care of him for up to three hours at a time.
"He knows me, he's never had an overnight without me," Diekman said.
Zookeepers have to be careful with Niko, as with any human toddler. Coins or other small objects can't be left lying around.
"He does reach out and grab things. We don't want him putting things in his mouth," Diekman said.

You and That Monkey Get Outta Here and Don't Come Back!

Monkey unwelcome, mall officials say
By CHANTAL ESCOTOThe (Clarksville) Leaf-Chronicle
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — Dwayne Metchis and his monkey, Ricky, are looking for a new place to set up shop.
Metchis, a Dickson man who runs a part-time business of letting people take pictures with Ricky, was barred from Governor's Square Mall in May after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals complained he did not have the correct license.
Mall officials at the time said Metchis and Ricky could come back once the proper paperwork was submitted, but they later made their ban permanent.
"They went against their word when they said I could come back," Metchis said.
Officials with the mall's management company, Warner Management Co. in Youngstown, Ohio, said Metchis never should have been allowed in the mall in the first place.


Dwayne Metchis and his monkey are banned from the Governor's Square Mall in Clarksville and were turned away by another business.

"It was a glitch," said John Richley, director of operations with Warner. "Animals are typically forbidden in shopping centers throughout the country, not just ours. They cause potential risks that most property owners don't want to engage."
Metchis believes he was banned because of pressure from PETA. Richley said that wasn't the case, even though a PETA advertisement is displayed inside the mall.
"Let me make this perfectly clear. There was no pressure from PETA. The position on the side of the mall was that he did not have the right licensing. In all fairness, it wasn't supposed to happen. We learned a great lesson in this experience, and it won't happen again," Richley said.
Metchis can legally do business and wants to help people learn about monkeys, but he's finding it more difficult to work because he says he's being harassed by PETA.
"I was kicked out of another (national-chain) business because of them," Metchis said.
PETA spokeswoman Lisa Wathne said while Metchis might have the proper paperwork to exhibit an exotic animal, her organization believes it's wrong for anyone to exploit animals for commercial profit.
She also said Ricky could hurt someone, even though Metchis said the monkey's teeth were removed by a previous owner and the primate is checked by a veterinarian twice a year.
"People are putting their child in danger," Wathne said.
"The fact that this type of activity is legal doesn't make it right."
Metchis, who also works as a handyman, said he and Ricky are still invited to various events across the region and he won't let PETA stop him.
"Monkeys are a lot of work. If I can stop one person from buying a monkey because they think it's cute, then I'm doing my job," he said. "I will continue to do what I'm doing."

Lock Your Doors and Hide Your Daughters!

Officers Search For Escaped Monkey

Police and animal control officers are looking for an escaped monkey in Turtle Creek Thursday.
On Wednesday night, firefighters used thermal imaging cameras to search the trees along Oak Avenue.
Neighbors claim they saw the monkey swinging from trees. Another neighbor claims an animal has been eating strawberries from their garden.
Officials are not sure where the monkey escaped from.

Monkey See, Monkey Don't

Monkeys Get Intermediate Grade on Mirror Test

Whether or not an animal can recognize itself in the mirror has long been used by scientists as a means of self-awareness. Apes pass the test, but monkeys have been thought to perceive a stranger in their reflection. The results of a new study suggest that what monkeys see is not so simple: although they don't recognize themselves, they also treat their mirror twins differently than they do real animals.
Primatologist Frans B. M. de Waal and his colleagues at Emory University studied how 14 adult capuchin monkeys responded to their reflections. They exposed the animals to both familiar and unfamiliar monkeys of the same sex and to a large mirror. Adult females acted friendly toward the mirror and made eye contact more often with their reflection than they did with a stranger. Males, on the other hand, had both friendly and negative reactions to the mirror monkeys but still treated the reflection differently than they did a live animal. The animals' reactions to the three situations were consistent and specific enough that human observers unaware of the experimental set-ups correctly categorized the testing conditions.


The results indicate that capuchins know almost immediately that a reflection is not a regular stranger. It's possible, the authors argue in a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that the monkeys are in an intermediate stage of recognizing that the mirror image as themselves and seeing it as another animal. --Sarah Graham

Mr. Monkey Fell Off the Wagon Again!

A monkey drinks from a tap in Shimla, capital of the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, July 1, 2005. 

Quito the Heavyweight Champ vs. Jackson the Poo Flinger

Gorilla Takes On Chimp At Jacksonville Zoo

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- A gorilla and a chimpanzee are both recovering after a fight at the Jacksonville Zoo. The gorillas are fascinating creatures and so are the chimps. They live just across the moat from each other, which is usually a good barrier, since both fear the water and neither knows how to swim. One of the largest gorillas at the zoo, a 24-year-old male named Quito, either fell into the moat or tried to cross it, and ended up on the chimps side. Dr. Nick Kapustin is the Zoo's Veterinarian. He says, "There was an altercation and we have a chimp with Quito going into his territory and the two got aggressive with each other."Chimps are more aggressive, but much smaller. A 150-pound chimp named Jackson went up against a more than 500-pound gorilla, named Quito, and the chimp lost. Kapustin says, "Jackson the chimp sustained some bite wounds and lacerations and he was treated immediately."Quito didn't have any physical wounds but apparently went underwater when he was in the mote, which left him very sick. Kapustin says, "He likely inhaled water into his lungs. That can create some respiratory problems and that's what we're dealing with now."Both Quiot and Jackson are recovering in their indoor habitats and both are expected to be okay.The gorilla exhibit opened back in 1998 and zoo officials says this is the first time they've ever had any problem of this nature.


Quito the gorilla


Jackson the chimp 

Freelance Monkeys!

Monkeys take over Emmen Zoo
14 July 2005

AMSTERDAM — The adventurous squirrel monkeys of Emmen Zoo in the northeast of the Netherlands are always looking for way to break out of their enclosure and go exploring.
Now, they no longer have to emulate the escape-obsessed penguins of the animated movie Madagascar.
The zoo's management has put a hatch in the roof of their hut to allow the little monkeys to jump to explore the rest of the zoo using ropes and tree branches.
Their wander lustre had to be curtailed prior to this because some of the other more delicate monkeys in the zoo could have become infected by contact with the marauders.
The other monkeys have been rehoused in order to allow the squirrel monkeys to roam.
Biologist Wybren Landman said there were initial fears the squirrel monkeys would not return to their enclosure. But when one came back, the rest followed.
Their food is left for them at their enclosure.

Missing Monkey Case Closed!

Missing monkey statue returned to Mount Holly
By DAVID LEVINSKY Burlington County Times

MOUNT HOLLY - The long-lost Historic Mount Holly Monkey statue is back where it belongs.
Township police and officials said the sculpture, missing since November 2003, was returned to authorities Monday afternoon by an apparent Good Samaritan who said he rescued it from a home in Delanco.
"I just wanted to give this monkey back to the people of Mount Holly," said Carmen Cavalero of Burlington Township yesterday in an interview.
The monkey statue, called Historic Mount Holly Monkey because of the township landmarks painted on its body, was the first of three to disappear from a 14-sculpture outdoor exhibit set up for the First Night Burlington County celebration on New Year's eve in 2003. They were bolted to barrels set up on downtown sidewalks.
The second two statues taken were recovered days later from an attic in a township home and a resident was charged with theft, but the first remained missing until Cavalero contacted police Monday.
Cavalero said he spotted the sculpture in the living room of a home in Delanco last Thursday. He said the monkey reminded him of one he once saw in the window of a restaurant in Mount Holly.
He said he realized later that the monkey statue was stolen. "I went back to the house in the middle of the night (Sunday) and demanded that they turn it over so I could return it," Cavalero said.
He said the residents of the home reluctantly agreed to give him the statue, which he then returned to police the next day.
The statue was back on display yesterday in the window of the Main Street Mount Holly offices on High Street.
Officials there said no decision has been made about whether the sculpture would be sold like the others to benefit Main Street Mount Holly and the artists who created them, or kept.
"We're extremely happy the monkey was returned," said Regan Young, spokesman for Main Street Mount Holly. "Ultimately, the board will decide what happens to him."
Cavalero said he refused to disclose the identities of the residents to police. "I promised I wouldn't tell anyone where I got it from. I just wanted to acquire it for the police and give it back to Mount Holly," he said.
Mount Holly Detective Sgt. Mark Byar-schmidt said investigators did not plan to pursue the matter further. "The case is closed. All the monkeys are recovered," he said.

Monkey Without a Cause

Monkey Escapes From Cage, Bites Ohio Man
Tue Jul 12, 6:55 PM ET

CALDWELL, Ohio - Authorities were searching Tuesday for a monkey that escaped his cage and bit a man before fleeing. Noble County Sheriff Landon Smith said two monkeys escaped from an outdoor cage, but one was soon captured by the owner.

The other monkey attacked a 20-year-old man who stopped his truck when he saw him on the road, Smith said.

"The person passing through stopped because he didn't want to run him over," Smith said. "The larger of the two monkeys jumped in the truck, tore his pants and bit him on the leg. He just made a total fool of himself."

The man was treated at a hospital, where he got a tetanus shot, Smith said.

The sheriff's department asked residents of the southeast Ohio county to be wary of the monkey, which weighs about 18 pounds and stands about 3 feet tall. The monkeys' owner was allowed to keep them, Smith said.

"He had them in a cage in the yard," Smith said. "He left home and they got out."

Monkey Drinks White-Out, Turns White!

A zookeeper feeds a nine-day-old stump-tailed macaque at a zoo in Guwahati, the major city of India's northeastern state of Assam, July 11, 2005. Picture taken on July 11, 2005. 

Fistful of Monkey

A zoo official holds a seven-day old Stump-Tailed macaque at the state zoological park in Gauhati, India, Saturday, July 9, 2005. The macaque lost his mother two days ago. Stump-Tailed is one of the rare species macaque in the world. 

We Have The Monkeys...And the Technology

'Human-brained' monkeys
By Nick Buchan of NEWS.com.au
July 11, 2005



Monkey magic ... one day you really may be able to talk to the animals, if a human/monkey 'chimera' developed a human-like brain.
Mr Monkey: "I say, those silly humans still believe in the theory of relativity...such gibberish!


SCIENTISTS have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal.

In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects.

Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare.

An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a 'super-animal' intelligence.

The high-powered committee of animal behaviourists, lawyers, philosophers, bio-ethicists and neuro-scientists was established four years ago to examine the growing numbers of human/monkey experiments.

These procedures, known as 'human-primate chimeras', involve the combination of human and monkey cells, tissue and DNA to observe any effect and examine the possibility that such combination could actually exist.
Chimeras are mythical monsters from Greek literature, which combined various bodyparts from lions, goats nd snakes.

This team will soon publish its conclusions in leading journal Science. In the report the committee will address such unsettling questions as whether introducing human cells into non-human primate brains could cause "significant physical or biochemical changes that make the brain more human-like" and how those changes could be detected.

The committee will also examine how detectable differences in the monkey's brains, for example emotional or behavioural changes, or if the monkeys developed 'self awareness', could be measured - and dealt with.

"What we were trying to do was anticipate - recognising that if science were to take that path there might be some different kinds of moral challenges." said committee co-chairman Dr Ruth Faden, a professor in biomedical ethics.

Summer Fun

Chewie, a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo, cools off with a hose given to her by her keepers at the zoo in Cincinnati, Thursday, June 30, 2005. 

I'm Going To Watch Them All!

A million monkey movies
Posted Jul 7, 2005, 11:45 PM ET by Karina Longworth
Filed under: Classics

Well, probably not a million, but still - this is hilarious. The National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin has built a directory of "Motion Pictures Featuring Monkeys and Apes". From Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, to Zambo the Ape Man, the list is pretty comprehensive, and includes narrative details and even commentary where applicable (the entry for 1948's Who Killed Doc Robin? reads: " Another haunted house with a gorilla in it. How many of these places are there?").




As The Cinetrix puts it, "It's truly a heroic undertaking" - but, as one of her post's comments remind us, the list is missing at least one notable entry: in Blonde Venus, Marlene Dietrich strips out of a gorilla suit to save her sick husband, Herbert Marshall - or is it seduce wealthy politician Cary Grant? Anyway. Any other monkey movies that didn't make the list?

Move Over Roy Horn!

Gorilla attacks Lincoln Park zoo keeper
By Melanie Coffee
Associated Press Writer
July 5, 2005, 5:40 PM CDT
A gorilla bit a Lincoln Park Zoo keeper on the back Tuesday, the latest incident at the facility already tainted by a series of recent animal deaths.
The 32-year-old female worker suffered a small puncture wound and a sprained ankle during the attack, which happened about 10 a.m. while she was working in the outdoor gorilla habitat at the North Side zoo, officials there said.
The zoo said in a statement that a male gorilla named Kwan shoved the keeper down and bit her. She was treated and released from Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
The zoo determined the attack was due to human error and officials were discussing disciplinary action. Zoo spokeswoman Kelly McGrath would not elaborate.
Zoo visitors were never in danger.
"We are relieved that no one -- human or gorilla -- was badly injured,'' zoo curator Robyn Barbiers said in a statement. "Kwan's aim was certainly not to hurt the employee, but to clearly illustrate his dominance.''
The incident comes less than a year after two lions mauled a zoo keeper last September, injuring her head, neck and arms. An investigation by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration later found that zoo keeper Nancy DeFiesta forgot she let two lions into the zoo yard before she entered it to give the cats fresh water.
The zoo came under further scrutiny when an elephant died there in October of a disease similar to tuberculosis and another died in January from a variety of ailments common to older elephants. Zoo officials then moved the only remaining elephant to Salt Lake City because the animals require companionship. That elephant's health declined during the trip and it was euthanized a short time later in early May.
In December, a camel died and federal officials are investigating that death. The zoo has said it was likely because of a gastrointestinal disease.
In February, the first gorilla ever born at the zoo died after her health deteriorated, and in April a second gorilla was euthanized because of an unknown disease.
Then in May, three Francois langur monkeys died soon after they were moved into a new exhibit.
Soon after, zoo president Kevin Bell offered his resignation, but the board refused to accept it.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which inspects zoos, is investigating whether the facility has violated the Animal Welfare Act because of the spate of animal deaths.
The American Zoo and Aquarium Association, which accredits U.S. zoos, finished its review in June of Lincoln Park's animal care practices. An association spokeswoman did not have the results of that report. McGrath said she did not know whether the zoo's board had received the report.
The zoo, established in 1868, is open year-round and is one of the few free zoos operating in the United States.