NEWS -PRIMATE PALACE OPENS AT AUSTIN, TEXAS ZOO

Primate Palace opens at Austin Zoo

  By Ben Wear AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Makayla, like anyone moving into new and strange living quarters, seemed a bit shaken by the experience Saturday.
She huddled under what appeared to be her favorite gray blankie and peered nervously at a visitor through the wire of her cage. Makayla, you see, is a capushin monkey who, like a dozen or so of her simian friends, is spending her first days in the Austin Zoo and Animal Sanctuary's new Primate Palace.
On Saturday, the rescue zoo, in Oak Hill near U.S. 290, celebrated the opening of the $102,000 revamped former pony barn. The small wood-frame building over the past three years had to be re-leveled, repainted (including a mural on one side), outfitted with several monkey "bedrooms" inside and expanded to the west with large outdoor cages for the residents.
Openings in the palace wall allow the monkeys to move at their leisure between the heated indoors (or air-conditioned, as the seasons demand) and the cages outdoors with ropes and platforms for climbing.
Dozens of zoo-goers gathered outside those cages on the brisk but pleasant afternoon as head zookeeper Sara King and primate expert Kelly Todd talked about the monkeys and how they came to live in the Hill Country.
The facility is a rescue zoo, one that does not seek out animals for display but rather accepts animals surrendered by civilian owners (including a lion that was living with an over-the-road trucker), given up by research or medical facilities, or captured by agencies like the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Donna King, a capuchin so named for a hairdo that resembles boxing promoter Don King's wild locks, had been a test subject for psychotropic drugs in an earlier life, zoo Executive Director Patti Clark said. Despite having been at the zoo for quite a while, Ms. King has never been able to grow back much of her coat, Clark said.
But most of the zoo's 30 or so primates, and the other 300 or so big cats, bears, foxes, birds and other animals at the sanctuary, looked hale Saturday.
The sanctuary, after a rough few years of lax management, poor morale and sometimes surly customer service under its previous owners, now has a $900,000 annual budget, a larger donor base and 15 full-time employees, Clark said.
"It's all about giving these (animals) a better opportunity than they had before," Todd said.

NEWS - ENEMIES OF CHIMPANZEES THROWN OUT OF BIASED COMMITTEE!

Enemies of Chimpanzees Thrown Out of Biased Committee!

Posted By: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

To: Members in 429 Causes

Enemies of Chimpanzees Thrown Out of Biased Committee! Dear Friend, I want to share an exciting development in PETA's continuing effort to end the exploitation of chimpanzees and other great apes in experiments. Last year, the American public vehemently opposed—and ultimately prompted the cancellation of—the transfer of nearly 200 retired chimpanzees back to a laboratory where they would be imprisoned in small cells and abused in infectious-disease experiments. As a result, the federal government commissioned the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IOM) to conduct a study to determine whether the U.S. should continue to allow invasive experiments on chimpanzees. The U.S. bears the shameful distinction of being the only nation in the industrialized world to do so. In spring of 2011, the committee members were announced. Instead of giving chimpanzees a fair shake, the IOM heavily stacked its 15-member review committee with animal experimenters and people from institutions that have openly lobbied against federal legislation to end chimpanzee experimentation. PETA immediately wrote to the IOM protesting the biased committee, calling for it to be disbanded. I am delighted to report to you that after hearing from us, the IOM removed three committee members to whom we objected, one of whom works for a pharmaceutical company that experiments on chimpanzees, and two others—including the committee chair—whose institutions directly lobbied against protections for great apes. While the removal of these individuals from the committee bodes well for chimpanzees, these intelligent and sensitive animals still need your help! Please help keep them out of laboratories. Click here to let your senators and representatives know that you support the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, which would ban invasive experiments on chimpanzees and other great apes once and for all. Thank you for all that you do for animals. Very truly yours, Kathy Guillermo Vice President Laboratory Investigations Department People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals P.S. For the best way to stay on top of urgent alerts and help animals, join PETA's Action Team today!

BORN TO BE WILD- IN IMAX and 3D !! IM GOING TO HAVE TO SEE THIS!

my son just came home, walked into the PC room, and looked at me, and for whatever reason told me there was a movie id "really want to watch! cause it has Monkeys and..Elephants in it."


i immediately asked if it had anything bad in it, like killing, and harming animals...he assured me it didnt.


so, he leads me to youtube, and the trailer for: BORN TO BE WILD.


i thought to myself.."BORN TO BE WILD?!, thats a classic movie about a lion that was raised by humans (i think, i was kinda young when it came out)"


so the trailer opens, set in africa, and the jungle, and were seeing orangutans, and elephants, and hearing MORGAN FREEMAN voice talk about the depletion of the wild animals in the world, and asking the audience to go view 2 spectacular people who have devoted their lives to the rehabilitation of abandoned, orphaned baby orangutans, and baby elephants..


i started to cry...
because i hate that i have very little power to do ANYTHING to change the plight of these precious beasts we seem to care so little for, and when they are gone...they are..G*O*N*E. and the ONLY living ones well be able to experience are the ones at zoos, and sanctuaries, and in circus.
so, NOT the true environment they deserve.


ill be seeing this, not sure it necessary to see it in 3D...im pretty sure the impact will be just as awesome to me in regular 20 foot imax vision.


here, have a sneak peak!



anyone who knows me, knows i LOVE monkeys!
and i have a strong affection for elephants as well.


MICHELLE