Author: primatecare

Until today Benji would always stay within 2 feet of me or my wife.  For the first time ever Benji decided it was time to start checking out the rest of our bedroom.  My computer is up in our bedroom so every night and weekend Benji and I spent most of our time together there.  In most cases he just spends his time on my lap and jump back and forward from my lap to the chair next to me where he has a little basket with toys in it.  Today Benji actually jump on the floor several times to check out the rest of his surroundings.  He’s still trying to play with the cats but in most cases the cats just leave after a while or give him a slap on the wrist.  They’re pretty gentle about it but at that time Benji knows it’s time to leave them alone.

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I set my alarm clock so I would wake up 15 minutes earlier.  These extra 15 minutes should allow me to make him a bottle, cut up some fruit, and change his diaper.  I also have to feed our raccoon who still likes to get a tray of kitten milk with cereal but I have already been doing that for months so that doesn’t require any additional time.  I’m one of those people who hates to get up early so everything is very much calculate in the morning so I can sleep as long as possible.  Everything didn’t go as smoothly as I was hoping for.  Changing the diaper was a major challenge so I left a few minutes late.  I decided to drive a little faster than normal which made sure still arrived at work in time.  I was so surprised when I walked towards my office.

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We’re ready to go to the exotic animal auction.  For the last few weeks I’ve been working really hard building on indoor enclosure in our house.  My wife was nice enough to give up her office space which allowed me to build a rather large monkey room in our house.  For once I really wanted to be prepared.  The indoor enclosure was huge for the pair of marmosets we were about to buy.

It took us 3 ½ hours to get to the exotic animal auction.  I’m not all that crazy about these auctions but the fact remains that you can really purchase exotic animals at a much lower price.  I haven’t been this nervous in a long time because purchasing a primate is a big deal.  Next up are the marmosets.  For once they have a rather large collection of marmosets for sale.  Suddenly doubt sets in.

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By Gina

When I went to see the 3 capuchins that would be adopted by me, I never imagined the conditions they were kept in.

I, along with my father, traveled to Dahlonega Georgia, USA, to see these animals that the animal dealer had told me about over the phone. Mr. Whelcher (the dealer) took my father and I to a medium sized farmhouse on his property. Within those walls laid the most unimaginable conditions. Several groups of squirrel monkeys were in a single cage no larger than 5’x5’x5′! He made the comment “I keep losing the babies, I just don’t know what’s wrong with ’em.” Gee, I wonder why?

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By Jose F. Jaramillo Vasquez

Cloning might be one of the most providential instruments ever for saving endangered species. More desirable would be for instance to replenish the seas with multitudinous identical varieties of dolphins, than having just written and photographic records about how they were, looked and lived before man let them come to a full extinction, as already happened with so many animals.

Cloning could be the only available tool we would have in order to rescue so extremely difficult to breed animals as chimpanzees, panda bears, tigers, whales, condors and many other from the pitiful road to annihilation. Let us not take away from them what might be their last opportunity to survive on earth. Without needless delays, mostly caused by misconceptions, fears, ignorance, and absence of an open dialogue on the matter, we should encourage responsible research and development in order to aid nature to avoid such a disaster. Upcoming generations who would enjoy all those wonderful creatures and their countless descendants will thank us perpetually.

Given the striking achievement of having cloned different kinds of animals so far, it is mostly a matter of expanding funding and means of investigation, whenever possible oriented to discover the safest and most humane possible ways of cloning without inflicting tribulation or harming the dignity of those specimens being replicated. Furthermore cloning would allow to select the very best and healthier donors, contributing that way to a betterment of many animal species. That is what we have so successfully done with plants throughout millennia. Thanks to the vast experience and knowledge we have accumulated, now it is time to turn our thoughts towards the animal kingdom and -why not?- the human being itself.  Otherwise evolution would impede and finally stop, and thus our still plausible dream of some day beginning to make real the enterprise of conquering the universe would vanish forever.

The author of this article, Jose F. Jaramillo Vasquez, believes that cloning could be a possible solution for the extinction of endangered species. We only publish this article because we believe that a dialogue about this matter should be kept.

 

By Jennifer Dougher

A year ago, I went to my local zoo. I go there a few times every year. Well, last year, I saw a Capuchin cage. I couldn’t resist!! I had to go see them. I love capuchins and I know a lot about their hierarchy and social behavior, so after a few minutes of observing them I noticed that the White faced Capuchin male was the dominant male of the group, the Cinnamon was the least liked by the group because every time he came too close to the male that he chased him around the cage and pulled at his tail.

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