Putting Your Self(ie) And Animals At Risk

What’s a picture really worth? What’s the price for a moment of wonder, excitement, and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be just... that... close to a wild animal?  I have written these words before about the concept of having an exotic animal as a pet—a chimpanzee, a macaque, a tiger, or any number of others. I understand it. I understand the profound and emotional yearning to be close to a wild animal. To touch a wild animal. To embrace the companionship of a wild animal. It’s got to be magical and exciting.

http://tinyurl.com/j472964

The Case for Treating Animals as Humans

In the new documentary ‘Unlocking the Cage,’ attorney Steven Wise makes his case for why animals need legal personhood for their own safety.  Earlier this month, when Louisiana’s New Iberia Research Center, the world’s largest chimpanzee research facility, announced it was moving all 220 of its chimps to a sanctuary in Georgia, it’s a safe bet the news made attorney Steven Wise the happiest man on the planet. That’s because two of the chimps, Hercules and Leo, had been the subjects in an ongoing legal battle about the rights of chimps, a legal case brought by Wise, president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, and the subject of D.A. Pennebaker a Chris Hegedus’s Unlocking the Cage, a documentary out now in New York, followed by a national rollout and an HBO broadcast early next year.

http://tinyurl.com/zwlq8o2

Hipster Chimpanzees Sticking Grass in Their Ears

When one chimpanzee starts putting a blade of grass in her ear, it's an oddity. When a whole bunch of them copy the behavior, it's enough to make scientists go "hmm."  The behavior in question first turned up at Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage, in Zambia. In 2010, a rescued chimpanzee named Julie started walking around with a long-stemmed blade of grass sticking out of her ear. Over the next year, seven more chimpanzees in Julie's 12-member group began mimicking the behavior.

http://tinyurl.com/mu88rc7

An Evolving View of Animals

The portrait has a blunt simplicity. A chimpanzee sits with his back facing the camera. His gently lit body is nearly hairless from alopecia, and only a few strands of gray hair remain on his sandpapery scalp. A spotlight on his head reveals a reddish scar that has yet to fully heal.  Tim Flach, a London-based photographer who has been documenting exotic animals for the past two decades, said he deliberately captured the back of the chimp’s body to provoke his viewers to question the striking similarities — and differences — between their own bodies and the chimp’s.

http://tinyurl.com/ntetj28

-Igor Purlantov

Loophole Allowing Chimpanzee Abuse May Soon Be Closed

Those concerned about the present and future conditions of chimpanzees — humankind’s closest genetic relative — have been given reason to feel optimistic: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently proposed a rule that would, if adopted, finally close a loophole in the Endangered Species Act regulations that has allowed these intelligent and social primates to be bought, sold and traded, then harmed, harassed and wounded in captivity.

http://tinyurl.com/lqvkn78

Video: Chimpanzee Feeds Tiger Cub

Looking for some motivation to start your workday? Or perhaps just a little mid-day distraction? A video of two-year-old Do Do the Chimpanzee, feeding Aorn, a two-month-old tiger cub will probably do the trick.

http://tinyurl.com/3nm5wnp