Primate Update E-Newsletter, Vol. 3, Issue 10, Part 1

PPS PRIMATES in the SPOTLIGHT

Happy 10th Birthday Olivia!
On October 24, 2001 a tiny white-tufted eared marmoset was born at Pacific Primate Sanctuary. Her mother passed away in childbirth. Olivia, as she was later named, was cross-fostered by compassionate Sanctuary volunteers. She was lovingly cared for, dropper fed, and kept warm and safe. Once she was weaned, Olivia needed to live with other monkeys- to learn social behavior, vocalization, and to truly become who she was born to be. When Lucian arrived at PPS, rescued from a chemical testing facility, we thought he might make a wonderful companion for Olivia. The two were paired, and Olivia developed into a fully functional primate with Lucian. She was able to form a strong bond with another of her own kind. After Olivia gave birth, she matured fully, becoming a competent marmoset mother. She and Lucian carried their babies, provided them with nourishment and warmth, and protected them. Olivia and Lucian raised their family together in their outdoor enclosure, learning to forage, groom each other in the sun, explore the green world, and experience a full, rich life. Olivia will be turning 10 years old this month, and it has been inspiring to see an orphaned infant become a strong, socially successful adult marmoset!

Olivia (left) with Bianca (top) and Lucian (right)

Please help us continue to provide monkeys, such as Olivia, a home where they can live in nature with others of their own kind.
Donate now at: http://www.pacificprimate.org/help-donate.htm

SANCTUARY NEWS

The Yellow Ginger is back in season, and the monkeys at PPS have been happily enjoying this favorite treat! The highly fragrant plant contains many small yellow flowers, each with a long tubular neck full sweet nectar, similar to Honeysuckle. All that delicious nectar also attracts the ants. Olivia (left) digs through a ginger flower, searching for some tasty ants, while Miranda (right) eats the nectar filled flower.

Montana relaxes, 

enjoying his 

new environment

Spider Monkeys, Carlos and Montana appreciate their spacious enclosure. We have seen them munching on the leaves of many different plants growing in their new home, and enthusiastically exploring throughout the day. The brothers have lived their entire lives on display at local tourist attractions, living in small cages.

Carlos swings through the air!

It is a joy to see Carlos and Montana finally able to express their natural movement and brachiate, hand over hand, through the greenery from one end of their 40 foot enclosure to the other.


They are becoming healthier, stronger and more autonomous. Thank you for helping to make this possible!

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. 3, Issue 10, Part 2

WHAT’S HAPPENING at PPS?

Gearing up for the Volunteer Expo
Pacific Primate Sanctuary will be participating in the Maui County Volunteer Expo. The Volunteer Expo will be held on Saturday, October 29th at the Queen Ka’ahumanu Center in Kahului, from 11am-1pm. This event will give us a chance to connect with the community, and let them know about the wonderful volunteer opportunities available at the Sanctuary. We are looking forward to spreading the word about PPS!


Helping the Monkeys
We are currently in need of more local volunteers! If you live on Maui and are interested in becoming one of Pacific Primate Sanctuary’s Angels, volunteering your time and skills, please e-mail us at PPS@aloha.net. We need Animal Caregivers, Office Assistants, Handymen, and Gardeners/Landscapers. Retirees are welcome!


GoodSearch and GoodShop
Looking for a Free and Easy way to raise funds for Pacific Primate Sanctuary? We are signed up with GoodSearch.com and now every time you shop online or search the internet, a donation will be made to the Sanctuary when you designate us as your charity of choice.
GoodShop.com works with more than 2,500 stores (including Target, Apple, Petsmart etc.) and every time you purchase something, a percentage will be donated to Pacific Primate Sanctuary. GoodShop also offers over 100,000 coupons and free shipping offers, so you can save money at the same time. It’s a win-win.
GoodSearch is a Yahoo powered search engine that makes a donation to us each time you do a search.
Supporting Pacific Primate Sanctuary has never been easier; please join us in using these sites to help raise money for the monkeys. Get started by clicking the “Become a Supporter” button on our profile page: http://www.goodsearch.com/nonprofit/pacific-primate-sanctuary-pps.aspx


How to Donate Directly
We deeply appreciate your continued partnership. You, and your family and friends, can make tax-deductible donations to the Sanctuary on our Website: www.pacificprimate.org and on FaceBook, using PayPal, or by sending a check to:

Pacific Primate Sanctuary

500-A Haloa Road

Haiku, HI 96708

With your support, you make everything we do possible!

PPS INTERNSHIP

Extern Dawn, filling water bottles

PPS Intern Annabel

Our newest Interns and Extern have progressed rapidly in their training. Extern Dawn, who arrived in June, has completed her AM and PM shift instruction and her Emergency Care module. Dawn was drawn to PPS, leaving her successful business in England. She had no previous exotic animal care experience but, with great motivation and dedication, she has mastered so much in the short time she has been at the Sanctuary! Now, Dawn will be able to deepen her understanding and skills as an animal caregiver, and she has also offered to take on some administrative tasks. Intern Linda also had a very productive month, graduating from both the AM shift and PM shift training. With her past experience working in a Vet Clinic, Linda was also able to complete her Emergency Care module in no time. Our newest Intern, Annabel, who came to PPS from England, has also completed her AM and PM shift protocol training. We have already begun Annabel’s instruction in Emergency Care, which she is very eager to learn. Intern Caroline graduated from both AM and PM shifts as well as Emergency Care training a couple months ago, and is sharing her skills with Dawn, Linda and Annabel. This powerful PPS team can now begin to learn about Colony Management!

Current PPS Interns and Externs: Linda, Caroline, Dawn and Annabel

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. 3, Issue 10, Part 3

CONTINUING EDUCATION

Special Topic: Intern Linda
Marmosets and Tamarins
Chapter 2: A vocal taxonomy of the Callitrichids

Saddleback Tamarins have highly complex vocalizations.

Vocalizations in Callitrichids serve many functions. The long or loud calls are used in species identification, mate attraction, and for defense. These calls are important in reproductive isolation and identification of species because the vocalizations are species-specific. Long calls have been well studied and are used to defend against intruders of the same species, to keep a group together, and for finding a mate.


Below is a phylogeny tree showing the evolution of marmosets, tamarins, and other closely related monkeys, by Rosenberger and Coimbra-Filho (1984). Craniodental (teeth and skull) features are used to determine the specie relationships.

Through this interpretation, it is possible that tamarins separated earlier than marmosets and therefore live in different environments. Tamarin calls have a frequency range that is lower than callitrichids and can travel for longer distances. They are found in the Atlantic Forest with much less noise than other Amazon regions. In contrast, marmoset calls are very high in frequency but rapidly decline as it goes into the distance. This is due to the immense number of competing noises that are found in the Amazon. Marmosets have adapted by having a high-pitched long call to avoid being masked by other sounds.


-Rylands, A.B. Marmosets and Tamarins. Systematics, Behavior, and Ecology. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1993.


Special Topic: Intern Caroline
The Complete Capuchin
Chapter 10. Fancy manipulators. Capuchins use objects as tools.


Capuchin monkeys use tools in the wild, as well as in captivity, to achieve a common goal. Capuchins frequently use tools in captivity similar to other primates, such as chimpanzees. However, there is less evidence of tool usage by capuchins in the wild, perhaps due to their arboreal nature. Hundreds of years ago tool usage by capuchins had already been reported. In Panama, 500 years ago, capuchins were observed cracking nuts after seeing men open the nuts with stones. The men would leave the nuts where capuchins could reach them and the capuchins would then crack the nuts with the stones.


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


Special Topic: Intern Annabel
Chapter 6: Foraging for Prey

Marmosets at PPS hang upside down to 

access a treat filled bamboo feeder

In a study comparing habits of five new world monkey species, foraging was for all a major, if not the major activity, occupying from 15% to 49% of their waking lives. Tamarin species spend most of their time hunting on tree trunks and branches. Tamarins are dedicated leaf foragers, and devote between 85 to 90% of their attention to this class of substrate.


This foraging behavior can be seen and encouraged in the tamarin and marmoset species at PPS. Bamboo feeders can be placed inside enclosures. These require the monkeys to manipulate the feeders in order to get to the treats inside. This mimics natural behaviors with increased foraging times being more similar to what would be seen in the wild. The tamarins and marmosets also have green rooms filled with various selections of plants and trees. The monkeys can use these environments to for hunt insects on the leaves and branches, thus exhibiting natural behaviors.


-Moynihan, Martin. (1976). The New World Primates. Adaptive Radiation and the Evolution of Social Behavior, Languages, and Intelligence. Princeton University Press


Special Topic: Extern Dawn
The ethnoprimatology of spider monkeys (Ateles spp.) from past to present


Human and nonhuman primates share a relatively recent history of interaction in the New World (the Americas) in comparison with the Old World (Africa and Asia).


Primatologists tend to focus their research on understanding the behavior and ecology of a particular primate species or subspecies. One of the most studied aspects of human-nonhuman interactions has involved human development and deforestation of primate habitat over the last 500 years. With so many of the world’s primate species endangered or threatened, such an approach is logical, meaningful, and most certainly critical for understanding the consequences of human behavior to the quite literal survival of many nonhuman primate species.

Carlos at PPS

In a broad view of perceptions of human and nonhuman animal life, Viveiros de Castro (1998/1999) has made the observation that it is common in cosmologies of indigenous Amazonian peoples to view Spider monkeys as former human beings. Rather than the popular Western view of humanity representing an evolutionary ‘stage’ following an earlier, less differentiated nonhuman primate “stage”, it is thought that contemporary monkeys are transformed beings who were human in a prior form of their existence. Interestingly, it has also been noted that Spider monkeys behave differently toward women than to men (D. Urdaneta, personal communication). 


Beliefs regarding spider monkeys are categorized into those involving “transformation” and those involving “contagion”. The first involves myths where spider monkeys are transformed human beings as mentioned earlier. The second involves either positive or negative attributes that can be conferred to human beings through contact with spider monkeys (and sometimes vice versa).


In summary, given how frequently the generic category of “monkey” appears in Central and South American myths, it is clear that spider monkey symbolism remains an area that needs further exploration.


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

“Our task must be to free ourselves…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures, the whole of nature, and all its beauty.”                — Albert Einstein




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 70 primates saved from research laboratories, animal dealers, and tourist attractions. 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.