Pacific Primate Sanctuary- One Day on Earth

Primate Update E-Newsletter, Vol. 2, Issue 11, Part 1

PPS PRIMATES in the SPOTLIGHT

Meet Nikki and Lily

Nikki checking out breakfast

Nikki and Lily are White-tufted Eared Marmosets who will be celebrating their 9th birthday on November 29!

They are incredibly active and playful and spend hours exploring their outdoor enclosure, running back and forth along the branches, and climbing along the small tree trunks.

Lily surrounded by palm fronds

Sanctuary Volunteers noticed that they particularly enjoyed wrestling and chasing one another in a cloth hammock. Since they do this so often we created a double hammock for them - one stacked on top of another.

Nikki and Lily are also vey inquisitive. Their enclosure
overlooks the Sanctuary kitchen window, Nikki particularly enjoys watching as the volunteers prepare breakfast every morning. The girls get very excited about their food, giving out a very loud squeal when they see their favorite treats-especially green beans, raisins, and dates!


Please help us provide Nikki and Lily, along with the 72 other monkeys at Pacific Primate Sanctuary, with wholesome food and hammocks to play in!
Donate Now! 

NOTABLE NEWS

Carlos enjoys a lilikoi

We have had quite a bit of rain this month, which has done wonders for the plants around the Sanctuary! There is an abundance of Guava which has been made into delicious fruit leather and mixed with high fiber to make frozen fruit balls. The Spider monkeys really enjoy the fresh Surinam Cherries and Lilikoi (passion fruit) which they eat whole- skin and all! The Capuchins are particularly fond of the fresh Figs currently in season. A tree in the garden has produced many plump avocados that have been a perfect high calorie food for our small marmosets on special diets.

Frieda grooming Bruno

Happily, we were able to pair two lone monkeys this month! Bruno’s mate Brenda passed away and he was living alone in the new extension. We introduced him to Frieda, a single female, and the two showed an immediate interest in each another. Frieda was placed into the enclosure with Bruno, and they bonded quickly. The two have been seen grooming each other in the morning sun and following one another around their outdoor enclosure!

Happy Birthday Lazero!

We have continued to move more monkeys into the new extension! The corridor in the main Sanctuary building is now spacious and un-crowded, with most of the monkeys taken out of the indoor portables and now living in their outdoor enclosures in the extension. It is wonderful to see these monkeys in the greenery at last! Oona and Little Bea have been running around and exploring their new plants. Eudora, a Cotton-top Tamarin, is spending hours basking in the sunshine and gazing out at the greenery surrounding her.

In addition to Lily and Nikki, there are other birthdays coming up this month. Macaco, who spent many years living indoors as a pet, has been at Pacific Primate Sanctuary for over a year and will be celebrating his 11th birthday on November 15th. Lazero, a Cotton Top Tamarin will be turning 8 on November 22. All primates like to party and there will be special treats to make it a HAPPY BIRTHDAY for the monkeys!

MEET MORE MONKEYS

Davis and Cordelia, stretched out in a warming patch of sunlight.

Cotton Top Tamarins are amazing jumpers! This skill helps them to leap through the trees high up in the tropical rainforests of Colombia

WHAT’S HAPPENING at PPS?

Generosity and Compassion are the stuff miracles are made of! A Pacific Primate Sanctuary Miracle Worker has made a major donation towards the construction of the Spider Monkey enclosure. 

“It is the heart that gives, the hands just let go”

              —friend, supporter and Pacific Primate Sanctuary Angel

 We have created a general design plan, and are eager to get going on this project. The site has been prepared and materials are being ordered.

Soon Carlos and Montana, the Spider Monkey brothers rescued from tourist attractions, will be able to brachiate through the trees in a new 40-foot enclosure as they were meant to do!

Spider Monkey Enclosure Design

This Blog and its content is copyright of Pacific Primate Sanctuary, Inc.—

© Pacific Primate Sanctuary, Inc., 2009. All rights reserved.

Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following:

you may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your personal and non-commercial use only

you may copy the content to individual third parties for their personal use, but only if you acknowledge the website as the source of the material

You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.

Primate Update E-Newsletter, Vol. 2, Issue 11, Part 2

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP THE MONKEYS

‘Tis the Season of Giving
The Holiday season is upon us; it is a time of year to celebrate with friends and family- a time when joy, compassion, and the spirit of generosity abound. Below are ways you can help Pacific Primate Sanctuary during this season of giving.

GoodShop
Use GoodShop.com for all your holiday shopping. After designating Pacific Primate Sanctuary as your nonprofit of choice, you can shop at more than 900 top online retailers and a percentage of your purchases will automatically be donated to the Sanctuary! For example: if you shop on eBay using Goodshop.com, 25-35% of eBay revenue will be donated to PPS! GoodShop also provides many valuable coupons to use towards your purchases. When you select a store, you will automatically be redirected to a coupon page for that store. PLEASE use GoodShop this holiday season!

Gift Contributions
Many of us are sick of the holiday buying binge and are searching for truly meaningful gifts. We would like to present a gift giving opportunity:
Gift Contributions can be made to Pacific Primate Sanctuary in the name of anyone on your holiday list. Your Gift Recipients will receive a beautiful Contribution Certificate showing you have made a donation in their name, along with information about PPS. This thoughtful and significant gift helps to feed and care for threatened, endangered and distressed primates. Please see the following PPS Holiday Gift Contribution Form for details and and click here to send a Gift Contribution now using PayPal!

Rescue Fund
A Rescue Fund will allow us to provide refuge for at risk animals needing to be brought to the Sanctuary immediately. Laboratories and pet owners often have deadlines for placement and may not contribute to the costs involved in getting the animal to Pacific Primate Sanctuary or provide for their housing and care. Your contributions will allow us to reach out to these monkeys and bring them to this safe haven. If you would like to donate to the Rescue Fund please make a tax-deductible donation at the sites above.

Sponsor an Intern!
We have had several people interested in the PPS internship position who are unable to afford the cost of travelling to Maui and volunteering for a year. For example, we just received the following e-mail from a very qualified applicant:
“I recently graduated with my Master of Science degree where my focus was primate conservation and my bachelor's degree was in anthropology/primatology. I have lived in the jungles of Borneo doing orangutan rehabilitation and Costa Rica. My undergraduate and graduate theses were in captive primate behavior. I also have graduate level experience in Grant Writing and Proposals.”
He is an ideal candidate for our Internship program. Unfortunately, he does not have the finances for an airline ticket or for personnel expenses.

The Sanctuary provides housing and an orchard and organic vegetable garden for our Resident Interns, however we do not have the funds to fly qualified students to Maui or to provide a stipend. If you are interested in sponsoring an Intern by purchasing airline tickets, donating Airline Miles, or providing a monthly stipend for our Resident Interns please contact us at pps@aloha.net.

How to Donate Directly
We rely upon your continued contributions. You make what we do possible! Please encourage your friends and relatives to make tax-deductible donations to the Sanctuary in the following ways:
You may donate online on our Website: www.pacificprimate.org or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/PacificPrimateSanctuary using PayPal
or by sending their check to:

Pacific Primate Sanctuary
500-A Haloa Road
Haiku, HI 96708

With your support, you make everything we do possible.

Presentation at Pacific Primate Sanctuary
We were fortunate to have a guest speaker give a talk at Pacific Primate Sanctuary last month. Dr. Lydia Hopper is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Language Research Center, Georgia State University, conducting research with chimpanzees, rhesus macaques and owl monkeys. She is working in collaboration with Dr. Sarah Brosnan on an NSF funded project entitled Understanding Responses to Inequitable Outcomes in
Non-human Primates. “How Chimpanzees and Capuchin monkeys take into account both their own and others' rewards or procedures and make subjective assessments of their outcome based on these changing parameters.” (Cebus Lab, Georgia State University). It was very interesting speaking with Dr. Hopper about her findings and learning that the research community is coming to understand that all primates share the concept of fairness and equity.

Cheryl, Dr. Lydia Hopper, Lucy and Mary Catherine

Pizza Party for the Monkeys

Watching Videos of the Monkeys

We recently had a fundraiser at the Flatbread Company in Paia, Maui. Flatbread donated a portion of each pizza sold to the Sanctuary. The event included a silent auction organized by Judi, our multi-talented Sanctuary volunteer. Generous friends and supporters in the community donated beautiful art objects and services for the auction. People had fun bidding and the auction turned out well. Pete, Loli, and Cyndi helped to share literature and speak directly with many people about Pacific Primate Sanctuary.

Mary Catherine and Lisa welcomed patrons at the door and told them a bit about our work at the Sanctuary. The children watched Erin’s wonderful movies of the monkeys living with others of their own kind in a green environment.

Thank you to everyone who helped make our PIZZA PARTY FOR THE MONKEYS a huge success! This was a great fundraiser, and we appreciate everyone who came out to support Pacific Primate Sanctuary.

Sanctuary Volunteers Mary Catherine, Judi, Loli and Lisa

PPS PEOPLE in the SPOTLIGHT

Meet Intern Lisa

Pacific Primate Sanctuary would like to Congratulate Intern Lisa on the completion of her Internship training program. Lisa came to the Sanctuary on July 27, 2010. In just 3 short months, Lisa has become proficient in the areas of Animal Caregiving, Emergency Medical Care, Colony Management, Record Keeping, and Volunteer Training. Lisa is now certified as a Primary Animal Caregiver at Pacific Primate Sanctuary!

Lisa received a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Texas A&M Corpus Christi. She has always had a passion for animal husbandry, conservation and animal welfare.

Mary Catherine, Lisa and Erin

When Lisa first wrote to us about the internship, she spoke of her past experience working with animals “…I learned the importance of dedication and passion it takes to pursue this line of work.” Upon reading that, we knew that Lisa would be a great Sanctuary Intern!

In her letter of acceptance, Lisa wrote:
You never know when the opportunity of a lifetime will appear, but I’m so thankful it did. …. I think what drew me most to PPS was the simple message “Where the suffering stops and the healing begins!”






We are so grateful that Lisa has come to Pacific Primate Sanctuary!

This Blog and its content is copyright of Pacific Primate Sanctuary, Inc.—

© Pacific Primate Sanctuary, Inc., 2009. All rights reserved.

Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following:

you may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your personal and non-commercial use only

you may copy the content to individual third parties for their personal use, but only if you acknowledge the website as the source of the material

You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.

Pacific Primate Sanctuary Holiday Gift Contribution

Primate Update E-Newsletter, Vol. 2, Issue 11, Part 3

PPS INTERNSHIP

Pacific Primate Sanctuary is seeking New World Primate Caregiver/Office Assistant Resident Interns. We would welcome someone with a background in animal husbandry and an interest in animal welfare and conservation, who is a mature team player with respect for others. Qualified Applicants are invited to apply. Please click on the link here for more details, and e-mail us at pps@aloha.net

CONTINUING EDUCATION

Special Topic: Intern Lisa


Spider Monkeys, Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution of the Genus Ateles
Chapter 4: Diets of wild spider monkeys

C.R. Carpenter conducted the first comprehensive field study of wild spider monkey diets back in the 1930’s in Panama. He found that spider monkeys’ diet consist of 90% fruit. Since his studies in the 1930’s other subsequent studies have basically confirmed what Carpenter found out.

Overall, the bulk of their diet consists of fruits-mainly ripe fruits. To compliment the diet they also eat plant parts, such as leaves, flowers, and seeds. Spider monkeys tend to eat the fruit and the seeds whole. Spider monkeys typically eat over the course of the day, usually in the morning and afternoon, with less activity in the midday. After feeding, spider monkeys will usually rest for a long time and tend to defecate large numbers of indigestible seeds from their bowels- this makes them great plant dispersers.

The social organization of spider monkeys is tied closely to their diet. Spider monkeys are part of a large community that splits into smaller groups to travel and feed. This type of social structure is known as a fission-fusion society.

Spider monkeys are well adapted for their diet of fruit. Spider monkeys posses a simple unelongated digestive tract and have a fast gut passage time relative to their body size. This enables them to rapidly ingest larger numbers of fruit and get what they need from these fruits and clear away the indigestible seeds.

-Campbell, Christina J. Spider Monkeys: The Biology, Behavior, and Ecology of the Genus Ateles (Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology). UK. Cambridge University Press. 2008.


Special Topic: Intern Cheryl


The Complete Capuchin. The Biology of the Genus Cebus


Chapter 3: Community Ecology: How Do Capuchins Interact With Their Local Communities and Influence Their Environments?

Most of the protein in Capuchin diets comes from invertebrates, primarily insects and other arthropods like snails. Capuchins are the only species of primate known to specialize in finding and extracting hidden and embedded insects e.g. larvae of beetles. Much of their time is spent finding food that can be easily captured and eaten.

Capuchins are known to switch to alternative foods (as discussed last month) when fruit and insects are scarce. One alternative is vertebrate prey. It so happens that the main nesting periods for parrots and squirrels is during the dry season when fruits and caterpillars are less common for Capuchins. During this time they will take advantage of the availability of eggs and often the birds and squirrels.

 A Capuchin monkey at PPS eats a fig

It is widely believed that Capuchins are subject to predation by animals such as jaguars, pumas, coyotes and raptors. However, monkeys can thwart predation attempts in several ways: they can be cryptic and silent; they can run away from predators; they can give loud alarm calls to warn others and they can actively confront predators.

Although Capuchins don’t commonly consume flowers, they have been known to insert their faces deep into certain flowers to obtain the nectar within. The pollen dust, which then clings to their face, would allow for dispersion and give Capuchins the role of pollinators. They are also known to tap branches and listen to the sounds of embedded insects; they will then break off the branch and lick out the grubs. ‘Tree pruning’ is a sufficiently common activity during foraging that researchers on the ground must be constantly alert to the dangers of falling branches!

Capuchins have been found to live in the same Neotropical forest with many other New World species. Capuchins have been found to co-exist with many others of the same species, something found to be quite rare with other species. This is most likely due to their abilities to exploit many different food sources and habitats.

This genus of monkey preys on both invertebrates and vertebrates and in turn, is preyed upon by a wide variety of carnivores. While their preferred foods are fruit and insects, they also occasionally eat seeds and flowers. At other times Capuchins disperse seeds away from the parent tree, and they carry pollen from one flower to another. It has been argued that Capuchins lower the numbers of certain insects that infest trees. They occasionally take agricultural foods from fields and orchards, leading to conflict with farmers, who may hunt them in retribution. They sometimes forage in mixed species groups, benefiting the other types of monkeys that travel with them. Clearly, Capuchins participate fully in the many forms of competition and cooperation that characterize the dynamics of ecological communities.

Fragaszy, D.M., Visalberghi, E., Fedigan, L.M. (2004) The Complete Capuchin: The Biology of the Genus Cebus. UK. Cambridge University Press


Special Topic: Infant Care: Marmosets and Tamarins

Both marmosets and tamarins provide communal infant care, which includes infant carrying and provisioning. Most species carry their infants for greater than 90% of the time for the first four weeks of its life. The amount of time an infant is carried varies among different species. For example, Callithrix (marmosets) carry and support infants for a shorter period of time than Saguinus (tamarins) do. The differences aren't due to variations in body sizes or growth rates, but because of ranging patterns, which impact energetics and group dynamics.

In many marmoset and tamarin species the mothers aren't the primary source of solid food for the infants. The mothers already expend energy for the infants through lactation, so additional foraging pressures would greatly decrease the mothers' energy. Ranging patterns are key to the varying degrees of communal infant care. With greater foraging distances, more communal effort is given to infant care.

-. Rylands, Anthony B. Marmosets and Tamarins: Systematics, Behaviour, and Ecology.1993: Oxford University Press; Oxford. 220-34.

“I want to realize brotherhood or identity, not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life...”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

We hope you have enjoyed this issue of Pacific Primate Sanctuary’s E-Newsletter. Thank you for your support of our life saving work. Because of compassionate people, the Sanctuary can continue to provide a place of peace and happiness for 74 primates saved from research laboratories, animal dealers, and smugglers. Here they can heal, form families, and live free from exploitation.

This Blog and its content is copyright of Pacific Primate Sanctuary, Inc.—
© Pacific Primate Sanctuary, Inc., 2009. All rights reserved.
Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following:
you may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your personal and non-commercial use only
you may copy the content to individual third parties for their personal use, but only if you acknowledge the website as the source of the material
You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.