NewsISSN-1040-3027, Vol. 46, No. 1 March 2019 INSIDE: ♦ Good-bye, Arun Rangsi ♦ Meet Shirley, a sweet loris named after IPPL’s Shirley ♦ Nakula Gibbon—rescued with IPPL help—lives on! Photo © Praiseng In This Issue: Page Good-bye, Arun Rangsi 3 A Note from Shirley & Siân Nakula – Update on a Special Gibbon 7 Dear IPPL Supporter, 2019 Upcoming Conferences 8 Myth of the Solitary Loris 9 We have been enjoying seeing and smelling some early spring flowers at Primates in Ecuador 11 Headquarters in Summerville, which is also known as “Flowertown USA.” Special Gifts 14 Camellias, crocuses, and daffodils are in bloom and the tulip magnolia trees are Saving Farah 15 glorious and have a smell to match. Our bird feeders are really busy with scarlet Red Howler Monkeys in Bolivia 17 cardinals and chickadees. Liberian Chimpanzee Sanctuary 21 This winter saw more cold weather than usual, and we kept the gibbons in on Adopt an IPPL Gibbon 26 very cold days; but, as I write, all 34 little apes are outdoors singing and swinging. Meet Paen 28 I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that 2019 has started off well for all of you. We helped make it a happy holiday season for the 27 sanctuaries and primate IPPL News action groups which received small grants at the end of 2018. These included 13 in SENIOR EDITOR .......Shirley McGreal Africa; eight in Asia, and six in South and Central America. MANAGING EDITOR .......Joan Brooks Among them were many groups we have helped for many years; Limbe Wildlife Center in Cameroun: C.A.R.E. Baboon Sanctuary in South Africa, founded by the About the Cover late Rita Miljo; Edwin Wiek’s Wildlife Friends of Thailand, and Angela Maldonado’s Fundacion Entropika in Colombia. YOU are an intrinsic part of IPPL. We are now in our 46th year. Time flies! Let’s make 2019 IPPL’s greatest year yet. Best Wishes, The cover photo is of an enchanting and highly endangered slow loris. The article about “Shirley,” a Javan loris, dispels the myth about the “solitary” loris and tells just how social the slow lorises actually are! (see page 9) IPPL: Who We Are IPPL is an international grassroots wildlife protection organization. It was founded in 1973 by Dr. Shirley McGreal. Our mission is to promote the conservation Dr. Shirley McGreal Dr. Siân Evans and protection of all nonhuman primates, IPPL Founder IPPL Chairwoman great and small. IPPL has been operating a sanctuary in Summerville, South Carolina, since 1977. There, 34 gibbons (the smallest of the apes) live in happy retirement. IPPL also helps support a number of other wildlife groups and primate rescue centers in countries where monkeys and apes are native. IPPL News is published three times a year. 2 IPPL | March 2019 www.ippl.org News GOOD-BYE, ARUN RANGSI By Shirley McGreal IPPL is devastated to report we knew it was intended to the loss of our first lab gibbon, be sarcastic. We immediately who was also my “heart started making plans to bring gibbon.” He came to IPPL from HLA-98—now Arun Rangsi— the University of California, to Summerville. Our friends at which used gibbons in viral the Animal Protection Institute cancer experiments that caused kindly went to the lab to collect them great suffering and death. him. Christine Saup and Ted The baby gibbon was born at Crail cared for him and took the lab, and his mother rejected lots of lovely pictures. The him. He was tattooed on his next morning they put him on chest with the number HLA- a Delta flight to Atlanta. We 98 and raised with a swinging were scared that he might get wire surrogate mother. Poor lost if we switched him to a little guy! Isolation-rearing is connecting flight to Charleston a terrible experience for any because of the ongoing air infant primate. Poor HLA-98 controllers’ strike. So we was raised with a swinging decided to drive the 300 miles wire surrogate mother covered to Atlanta. with a towel. He became I called my friend Kit emotionally disturbed and Woodcock, who lived close to constantly banged his head. IPPL, to come and help take He had many illnesses care of the four gibbons then during his first two years of living with us. Ten minutes life, including two bouts of later Kit called and offered pneumonia and two episodes to accompany me to Atlanta. of dysentery. He lost 10% of his Another neighbor, Marj weight twice, but he survived. Rollins, would feed Brownie, I once visited the lab and was Durga, Sapphire, and Tong. able to see him and the 50+ We drove the 300 miles other gibbons. to Atlanta through driving Finally good news! The rain. The Delta flight had laboratory lost its National just landed when we reached Cancer Institute funding. The the cargo area. I asked the gibbon leukemia virus that had staffer to call the pilot to killed so many young gibbons ask if there was a gibbon on was not found in humans. The board. The pilot responded, result was that the fifty-five “No, we have no gibbon, but surviving gibbons needed we have a chimpanzee.” We homes. Most went to zoos or animal him. The monks chose “Arun Rangsi,” waited patiently in the cargo shed and dealers. which means “The Rising Sun of Dawn.” soon a sky kennel came in. It was Arun Ardith Eudey, co-founder of IPPL, Katie also sent funds for his care. We Rangsi. got a tipoff that HLA-98 might be killed notified the lab director of this gift, and Soon we were on the road driving as he was said by the lab director to be received a reply from him saying, home to Summerville. I drove and Kit “metabolically abnormal” and “mentally sat in the back seat feeding the little Although I appreciate Mrs. retarded.” gibbon grapes. He refused green beans, Buri’s offer for adoption of “Arun At that point IPPL stepped in. We maybe thinking they were hypodermic Rangsi,” I feel that the funds may asked IPPL’s Thai friend Katie Buri to go needles! be more useful for “Arun Rangsi’s” to the Wat Arun temple in Thonburi, on When we reached Summerville, we trip to you as the sponsor of this the other side of the Chao Phraya River found out that the poor little guy banged his “adoption.” from Bangkok and ask the monks at Wat head constantly against walls, windows, Arun in Bangkok to select a name for We jumped for joy at the offer although and doors. He had developed a callus www.ippl.org IPPL | March 2019 3 News under his right ear. A local psychiatrist, from 1.20 to 1.05 kilograms and he was Peppy. In 1984 we found him a mate, the late Gerry Donovan, suggested placed on “supplementary feeding.” Shanti, kindly sent to us by LEMSIP. that I bang my head along with him, On 23 July 1981 he was examined The lab was phasing out gibbons. Arun and I did; it worked. He also suggested prior to transfer to IPPL. At that time Rangsi and Shanti bonded immediately. that I read a book The pair got along called “Son Rise” very well. Defying by Barry Kaufman, the psycholog y describing how he textbooks that say had brought his isolation-reared son out of autism primates never by imitating reproduce, Arun his behaviors. Rangsi and Shanti Amazingly, this became parents worked. Arun when Arun Rangsi Rangsi started to was just six years grow and to play. old. The pair took His face was great care of their pink as he had offspring. Their never been exposed first baby was to sunshine but Ahimsa and they e v e n t u a l l y i t had six more. Arun turned black after Rangsi would he started playing sometimes carry outside. his babies around, His medical something we have records made for never seen in any depressing reading. other male gibbon. In January We hired our 1980 HLA-98 got first staff member, diarrhea. In three Kathy Crawford, days his weight to help with animal dropped from one care. Arun Rangsi kilogram to 890 loved all foods, grams. He was put especially baked on Lomotil and sweet potatoes and recovered. grapes. We also In February gave him a special 1980 he was fortified milk shake observed to have in the evenings “nasal discharge when he sat on and slightly the couch with labored breathing,” me. Eventually from which he h e b e c a m e recovered. affectionate as he In March 1980 realized nobody he was treated for was going to harm shigella-caused him. diarrhea and for Our members bronchopneumonia, which was treated he weighed 2.2 kilograms and was loved Arun Rangsi. He even got several with penicillin. pronounced fit to travel. birthday cards every year! Linda Morton In April 1980 a routine chest x-ray He was later joined by two gibbons was an especially loyal friend. revealed possible viral pneumonia, for from the Laboratory for Experimental Ten years and six babies later, we which he was treated. Medicine and Surgery in Primates brought a sanctuary vet in from California In August 1980 his weight dropped (LEMSIP) in New York: Helen and to give him a vasectomy, which failed! 4 IPPL | March 2019 www.ippl.org News At that time sanctuaries were delighted to see primate families produce babies. Only later did this began to be considered undesirable.