An MP is calling for a ban on keeping primates as pets after seeing the condition of rescued animals.

South East Cornwall MP Sheryll Murray is set to introduce a Ten Minute Rule motion in the Commons on 18 January calling for a ban.

Mrs Murray said she visited the Wild Futures Monkey Sanctuary, near Looe, before she was elected in 2010 and was shocked to see the former pets.

The government brought in a code of practice for primate keepers in 2010.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the animals were also covered by Animal Welfare Act and some species were licensed under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act (DWAA).

However, Conservative MP Mrs Murray said she was backing the RSPCA and other animal groups who say primates’ needs are too complex for them to be pets and that the regulation is not working.

She praised the work of the sanctuary, which is now in her consistency.

“Some of the primates there had been pets and had come from various places in Europe. Many had been given unsuitable diets and led them to develop things like diabetes,” she said.

After visiting the sanctuary, the MP said she had “adopted” a Barbary macaque which had previously appeared in a circus.

Mrs Murray added it was charities and trusts who had to “pick up the burden” after primates were not cared for properly.

She said if her moves for a bill did not progress further, she would still push for law changes under the Animal Welfare Act to give primates greater protection.

In celebration of their 50th Anniversary, the World Wide Fund for Nature has released a short film that they hope might inspire a new generation to care about conservation. Written by Stephen Poliakoff and directed by the BAFTA winning Charles Sturridge, the seven minute film – Astonish Me – stars Bill Nighy and Gemma Arterton and is set in London’s Natural History Museum. Following a school boy around as he gets locked in after hours, we find a mysterious looking Nighy in a darkened basement room. The boy then gets taken on a multimedia tour of new species only just discovered using still images and mobile phone videos to add intrigue. A bit Night at the Museum perhaps, but is it what conservation needs in order to capture the imagination of kids – or adults for that matter – who might otherwise not care? WWF describe it as “a magical tale of adventure and discovery”. Cheesy? Undoubtedly. Will it work? It’s got to be worth a shot.

Showing in Odean cinemas, or watch it here.

Harvard / Duke studies published today indicate that PASA rehab strategies help orphaned apes to recover psychologically from bushmeat traumas and could be a reason that success rates are so high in PASA reintroductions. To read, visit: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017147

The Great Primate Handshake visits and supports a number of PASA sanctuaries. Learn more about their work on our YouTube channel here.

Abstracts from the PLoS article:

Facilities across Africa care for apes orphaned by the trade for “bushmeat.” These facilities, called sanctuaries, provide housing for apes such as bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) who have been illegally taken from the wild and sold as pets. Although these circumstances are undoubtedly stressful for the apes, most individuals arrive at the sanctuaries as infants and are subsequently provided with rich physical and social environments that can facilitate the expression of species-typical behaviors.

We tested whether bonobo and chimpanzee orphans living in sanctuaries show any behavioral, physiological, or cognitive abnormalities relative to other individuals in captivity as a result of the early-life stress they experience. Orphans showed lower levels of aberrant behaviors, similar levels of average cortisol, and highly similar performances on a broad battery of cognitive tests in comparisons with individuals of the same species who were either living at a zoo or were reared by their mothers at the sanctuaries.

Taken together, these results support the rehabilitation strategy used by sanctuaries in the Pan-African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA) and suggest that the orphans we examined did not show long-term signs of stress as a result of their capture. Our findings also show that sanctuary apes are as psychologically healthy as apes in other captive settings and thus represent a valuable resource for non-invasive research.

The Great Primate Handshake currently use the older XO model to explore ways in which educational materials can be distrubuted to schools and students using XO laptops across Africa. We have experienced the advantages of using XO laptops in the field, as well as the disadvantages, so it was with delight to see that some of the existing limitations have now been overcome.

The improvements:

The Hand Crank - The once trailed, but deemed unsuccessful, “Hand Crank” was designed to allow students to crank up their laptop, producing enough power for a typical lesson. Although in principle the device should have worked, it was found to have been to clumsy and inefficient, resulting in several hours of cranking for perhaps an hours use of the laptop. With the change from AMD processors, to Marvell processors, the laptop now uses 2 – 3 watts of power instead of 4. This dramatic power reduction, combined with an improved crank, should result in a 2 hour crank achieving 7 hours worth of use. A very necessary requirement for children using the laptop in areas devoid of power.

The Cost – Thanks both to the lowering cost of hardware since the XO’s initial release, coupled with the change of processor, the XO laptop should now be available for $165 (£106). This is still not the initial “$100 Laptop” (the original laptop’s desired cost) but is an improvement on the path to a sub-$100 machine. As a comparison, the original XO laptop was closer to $250 when launched if purchased by individuals or organisations.

For more information view the BBC’s coverage here

The Primate Handshake will be awarded £5000 towards its primate conservation expeditions and projects across Africa. With such a fantastic award fund, both Directors are thankful to the Handshake’s supporters and are looking forward to the new possibilities ahead thanks to the boost in funds.

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It is with great delight to annouce that the Primate Handshake’s two Directors (Alasdair Davies & Laurence Hall) have been nominated to receive a Digtal Hero award 2010, sponsored by Talk Talk and the Daily Mirror. This exciting award is presented to outstanding individuals, working within UK community groups or charities, who are using the power of digital technology to implement bright ideas which bring about positive social change.

Vote for Alasdair and Laurence now

Having led the last three year’s Great Primate Handshake Expeditions to South Africa, Kenya and Uganda, both Alasdair and Laurence are delighted to have been nominated. By directing and producing numerous short digital videos together with expedition volunteers and African local communities, and by hosting live internet link-ups with remote communities in Kenya and school children in Wales, their nomination supports the Great Primate Handshake’s commitment to conservation and it’s mission in utilizing digital media to raise awareness of primate conservation activites.

The winning nominated heros from 12 regions across the UK will receive a £5,000 grant to assit their work, with the overall winManer winning an amazing £10,000 grant!

You can vote for the Alasdair and Laurence to win a Digital Hero award here.

Your vote will ensure that the Great Primate Handshake does even more to raise awareness of threatened and endangered primates by sharing digital media skills with local communities.

More information about the Digital Hero award 2010 can be found here.

In response to this it could be said that if a company is solely interested in making money they will forget their values and end up harming animals in their care. For example, if there was a new lion brought into a zoo or commercial conservancy it could be deemed too expensive to increase the size of the lion enclosure. Also if the idea for the program was to reforest an area of rainforest then would they be able to do that efficiently without paying the workers?

Another opinion is that volunteers are so involved in their designated path that they will perform better than workers without the same moral incentive. However it’s also said that

If an organisation is solely running on external funding such as grants, volunteers and donations then there is no stability to the company as they could easily run out of funds and also volunteer work is short term so long term work ideas are difficult to continue. However a massive positive aspect of volunteer work is that the workers go and help out for a designated time, they further their learning through their work and further their understanding. When the volunteers return home they spread what they’ve learnt to friends and family so widen the education pool. Volunteers are willing to give up their time to help out, is there any better way for a business to be run? The workers want to be there and are enthusiastic about their employment; there would be no question of them destroying the good name of an organisation due to money worries or neglect of an animal.

What do you think? How should conservation organisations be run? Should there be a charity tax so that everyone has to give a certain percent of their income to good causes? Please comment, we’d love to hear what you think!

Over the next few weeks we will start to build up each gallery, populating them with photographs from past (and current) expeditions. The Kenyan Handshake Expedition whirred into life yesterday, with staff and volunteers currently undergoing their first few days of training at the edge of the Rift valley.

As the expedition continues to Kenya’s many game reserves the photos of Kenya’s primates and endangered wildlife will flood in. Join us on a photographic journey this August, at http://www.primatehandshake.org/photographs

We arrived at 10am, and after a quick meeting with the teachers and organizers of the event to arrange last minute details, we joined the pupils in the playing field, where minutes after, the children started singing and marching. I was surprised about how meaningful their song was (it was about their concerns for the Ugandan habitat), and it actually touched me deeply when they started to pick up the garbage from the roads and from the small hamlet near the school. I felt so overwhelmed that I couldn’t help a few tears run down my cheeks.

Later on the pupils introduced themselves to villagers, explained their concerns about the environment, and asked them to please collaborate with their country and help to promote conservation of their environment.

After an hour of collecting rubbish from the streets we went back to the school with baskets full of paper, plastics and other items that were contaminating the area. When we arrived, the wildlife group was divided in three. The education team, who had previously been working on different projects and activities for the children had the chance to present to the students. The teachers from Kasiisi School were very pleased with our participation during the day and very grateful with the work that the team had done.

Well done education team!!!

We were joined by Ben and Natasha from the video team, so they could make a documentary of our day. Rehmat, Alex and Kiera from the web team came to take photos and help out. It wasn’t the quickest start to the day as it was my birthday party last night, so everyone is a little tired. We all soon forgot this when we arrived at the school, the children have so much energy.

The wildlife club is optional and over 60 children attend; it’s fantastic that so many children are interested in conservation. The first activity that the club does is a litter pick. They carry a banner with the school logo and sing songs on the way down to the village. We managed to collect 3 large baskets full of rubbish. The children talk to the local villagers trying to encourage them to recycle; the villagers appreciate the children getting involved but find it difficult to recycle everything used. Everything that was collected is taken back to the school; the paper is used for making rope, baskets and jewellery.

Once we got back to the school we split into groups, one group made ropes and footballs out of the materials collected, the second group did a tip-tap lesson and the other children were in a choir lesson. We watched the choir group and attempted to join in; this is the song that they were singing:

Uganda sees the environment is gone,
Trees cut down,
What shall we do?
The only solution is to plants more trees,
Plant more trees,
And let the environment shine.

Then it was the education teams turn to teach the lesson that we have been preparing. All the children sat in a circle while I read them a story about Colin the Colobus which we wrote as a team. We all sat amongst the children and discussed the issues covered in the story.

It was then time for a warm-up; we played a modified version of ‘stuck in the mud’ that we devised with humans chasing the monkeys!! This introduced the issue of deforestation to the children in a fun and interactive way which the children really enjoyed. They were all far too fast for us to catch them!

We then moved on to our main activity. I split the children into 4 groups; each member of the team was in charge of a different group. Jade took the machines group, the children had to act like a machine going into the forest to crop down the trees, and one of the children was at the front being a human driving the machine.

 
Abbie’s group were monkeys, swinging through the trees, eating food and making lots of monkey noises. Suzanne was in charge of the trees, teaching the children how to grow from a seed into a tall tree.

Eleanor took the conservationists group, getting them to march into the forest and educate people too conserve the forest. The idea of this activity was to get the children thinking about how their character would be feeling. They practiced their movements before we all joined together again.

I then read out a little story so the children could act out their movements along to the story. The trees started as seeds and then grew tall so the monkeys could swing through them. The humans then drove the machines into the forest and cut down the trees. The trees fell to the floor and the monkeys left the forest very sad. The conservationists then entered the forest to educate the humans about why they should conserve their forest.
A spokesperson from the conservation group explained why the forest is worth saving; it was fantastic to hear the children talk about conservation so passionately. More ‘seeds’ were then planted so the forest could grow tall again; the monkeys could then swing through the trees.

Our story had a happy ending, but the lesson showed that this is not always the case. With a positive attitude a difference can be made and a brighter future can be achieved.

The session concluded with a discussion on how the children felt during the story to reinforce the issues covered.

One of the girls, Beatrice stood in the middle of the circle once we had finished and thanked us. She said she had learnt a lot and was looking forward to teaching her friends. We were all really overwhelmed and touched by what she said, as we felt we had made a real difference.

After the lesson Tom who leads the wildlife club gave me some really positive feedback, he was really pleased with everything the children had learnt and would love us to go back to the school to teach again.

All the planning and preparation was worth it. It was a fantastic experience to teach a wildlife lesson in a Ugandan School.

Good job education team!!!!

Ellie Sowerby
Eduation Team, Handshake Volunteer Uganda 2010