Nepal's Shame

Animal welfare campaigners staged demonstration outside the Nepali Embassy in London on Friday as part of their campaign against Nepal government's involvement in the breeding of rhesus monkeys for biomedical research in America.

Protesters gathered outside the embassy at 10:30 am GMT, with posters showing a suffering lab monkey and the heading “Nepal's Shame”, a statement issued by the Stop Monkey Business Campaign said.
Campaigners display pamphlet during the protest in front of the Nepali Embassy in London, demanding ban on export of rhesus monkey from Nepal on Friday Feb 22.
Campaigners display pamphlet during the protest in front of the Nepali Embassy in London, demanding ban on export of rhesus monkey from Nepal on Friday Feb 22.

The protest was the first in the UK in support of the global Stop Monkey Business Campaign.

Two representatives of the campaigners talked with Jhabindra Aryal, Counselor/Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy, and conveyed their concerns regarding the trade of monkeys for export to American 'research' companies. Aryal on his part promised to pass on the campaigners’ concerns to the Nepal government, the statement added.
“According to the British campaigners, Nepal should be ashamed of providing monkeys for biomedical research, especially in the past the country has built a reputation of protecting wildlife species such as the tiger, rhino and elephant,” the statement read, “They note that monkeys are considered sacred both by Hindus and Buddhists.”

The campaigners have urged the Nepal government to stop the export of monkeys for experimentation, which causes great suffering. They say that exposes of animal ‘research’ companies, including the ones on Washington and San Antonio which have established offices in Nepal, have shown time and time again of the untold suffering and fraudulent research that goes on in the name of science.

“Researchers tend to treat monkeys as disposable tools and consider proper animal care to be too expensive.”

The London demonstration was part of a growing global campaign pressurizing the Nepal government to ban the export of rhesus monkeys for commercial or scientific use. Earlier this month, campaigners protested at the Nepali Consulate in Amsterdam, Holland.

Similar demonstrations will be held in France and other European countries in March.

Make a monkey of the boss and succeed in business

Jan 14 2008 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

THE politics of the office are thought to be a matter peculiar to western culture. For the office politician to be able to deploy his or her Machiavellian tactics and chicanery, it is necessary to have a large corporate setting to manoeuvre among staff and management.

After all, in small organizations, everyone is busy actually doing things to achieve their goals, otherwise matters grind to a halt.

But clichés that the office is a jungle appear to be fact. Big companies are not necessary for office politics to thrive. Behavior patterns of jockeying for preferment are replicated among monkeys and chimps in the wild. Understanding their strategies is as useful as any insight into climbing up the corporate ladder or holding onto your job.

In the US, a study reported by the New Scientist magazine sets out “five rules of the jungle” that we would all be wise to assimilate for our corporate survival.

“The office and the jungle are surprisingly similar,” write the psychologists who undertook the research. It makes sense, really. Both social groups are ruled by stringent hierarchies, but both have to find a balance between the natural drive for competition and simultaneous need for co-operation to ensure the group’s successful continuation.

To this already complicated and often contradictory mix, there is the risk of hostile takeovers, a marketplace of favours and favourites, brazen opportunism. And – let’s not forget it – the long and ignominious tradition of brown-nosing.

What this means in totality, say the scientists, is that “you can’t tell the savanna from a forest of cubicles.”

Monkeying around takes on a more serious meaning with New Scientist summarizing five basic jungle rules that have emerged from the research that are applicable to the office.

We’d all do well to adhere to these guidelines if we want to learn how to cope with aggressive colleagues and over-demanding bosses. In other words, we do much worse than to make a chimp of ourselves.

Apparently monkeys, just like human beings, bridle at being treated unfairly. Trust is everything: it can be quickly established, but is difficult to retrieve if relations break down.

The monkeys even go on strike if they feel they are being let-down or short-changed by those in charge.

The researchers trained the monkeys to trade pebbles for food, which could be a commonplace piece of cucumber, or the much more valued grape. In a communal situation, if the researcher gave one monkey a grape and another a cucumber piece for doing the same task, the one that received the cucumber would down tools and refuse to take any further part in the experiment.

Apart from the blatant unfairness of the work/reward equation, the lesson that carries over to the office situation is that a single person should avoid taking credit for work that is done collectively.

Office relationships collapse when workers hijack their colleagues’ efforts; it is also unwise for individuals to brag about their salaries.

The second monkey rule of office behaviour is not only to have colleagues on your side, but also the boss (which could well be the more important). Other studies already indicate that primates who spend time currying favor with their superiors receive more backing when any arguments or fights occur.

But as important – and one often forgotten by the so-called superior human beings – is the third rule: the need for reconciliation and to avoid bearing a grudge.

Chimps embrace and even kiss after a fight, dolphins rub alongside each other and goats nuzzle. This magnanimity reduces stress and prevents the dispute re-igniting.

Team playing underpins the fourth rule, as chimps and humans prefer the company of co-operative fellows. Show your kind and caring side, even simple activities like making tea and buying buns for the department can repeat multiple benefits.

Finally, the fifth rule is probably the hardest: be a good boss. An acutely difficult act of balancing leadership, control and motivation. The failure of those in charge is also replicated in the wild, with insensitive chimps having to fight constantly to maintain their status, while their group becomes increasingly stressed.

It’s a wonder that any work gets done at all, isn’t it?

Crack down on New Delhi monkeys

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Monkey handler Ramal Lala strolls along New Delhi's streets, a leash on his monkey named Mungle. The local government has hired the two to chase down thousands of smaller monkeys known to roam this mega-city of 13 million people, hopping on just about anything, breaking into houses and occasionally biting spectators.


Monkeys such as these hang out on New Delhi's street corners. The city's government is trying to round them up.

1 of 2 On this day, Lala bangs a large stick, yells at the monkeys and lets his partner off his leash. Mungle, a Langor monkey, jumps into the trees and hisses at his smaller monkey kin. Every once and a while, Lala whips out a slingshot and fires at the little menaces.

"They steal clothes, snatch food from inside the houses. They raid the houses in large numbers," he says. "Sometimes, the brave ones even bite."

Lala and Mungle are essentially the monkey police of New Delhi. The government wants men such as Lala to round up the wild monkeys and move them to the Bhati reserve on the edge of India's capital city. Watch "monkeys gone wild" »

Authorities have tried to prevent the animals from freely roaming the city for decades. But they've met resistance. The monkeys -- known as "hanuman" -- are revered in India and not everyone wants to see them go.

The latest roundup began after the city's deputy mayor fell and died. His son said he was fending off monkeys at the time -- although speculation in the streets doubts whether that was the case.

The New Delhi government says it has rounded up 600 monkeys in recent months and moved them to the reserve. Some estimates put the number of monkeys roaming the city as high as 10,000.

The whole thing has scientists such as Iqbal Maliq, the leading expert on primates in India, furious. She says she believes the roundup is a joke.

"It's a stupid plan," she says. "It is a ridiculous plan that is making the entire country look ridiculous in the eyes of the scientists of the world."

She questions putting the Langor monkey on a leash to intimidate the smaller ones. And the idea of brandishing a slingshot against a monkey is just too much to bear. "Stupid," she says.

Half-joking, she adds, "I say give the monkeys the power."

It's a controversy that's not about to go away. Monkeys can be seen throughout the city. They run across the top of the Indian Parliament, swarm across streets, slide down telephone poles and sit on the side of the road staring at bystanders. Sometimes they heckle tourists, snatching lunch as people look away.

The city is filled with tales of people having to beat off a crazed monkey with a broom on their porch.


At the reserve where the monkeys are taken, a green fence separates them from the city. They climb the fence and walk along it, keeping a keen eye on everything.

When they get bored, they just hop over and head back into the city, back home. E-mail to a friend

DeBrazza Monkey

Scientists Make Breakthrough Discovery of Monkey Population in Kenya
By Joe De capua
Washington
31 October 2007

After much news of late about how primates are being threatened across Africa, there’s good news from Kenya. A new population of an unusual species of monkeys has been found in a most unexpected location. Scientists are calling it a breakthrough discovery in primate research.


DeBrazza Monkey, Photo courtesy of Wildlife Direct
The De Brazza Monkey can grow up to five feet in length, counting its tail, and weigh more than seven and a half kilograms. But what really stands out is the De Brazza’s snowy white beard and mustache.

Up until recently, it was thought there were only 700 such monkeys in Kenya. Conservation officials say the discovery was made in an arid region of northern Kenya, in “one of the last intact indigenous forest ranges.”

Iregi Mwenja is a research scientist with the Institute of Primate Research. It’s a department of the National Museums of Kenya. He also works closely with the conservation group Wildlife Direct. He confirmed that the monkeys were indeed De Brazzas, not known to exist east of the Great Rift Valley.

“De Brazza Monkeys in Kenya, we say they are endangered. But in Africa, we have stable populations in Congo, which is in the central part of Africa, but Kenya being the easternmost range of the species. We have a very low population. They have been estimated to be less than a thousand. So, before the discovery it was estimated to be at least 700. So, at least an additional 25 percent is significant to the conservation of the species in Kenya,” he says.

The habitat of the new population – the Mathews Range Forest Reserve – is described as “an island of biodiversity.”

“First you must understand the nature of the De Brazzas. They are very shy. The habitat that they occupy is usually very dense riverine forest. So, it is difficult to just spot them, apart from just walking along a river. Unless you deliberately, you know, go for them. So, this particular case the habitat is isolated. It’s in a very remote part of Kenya where we have very low human traffic. Of course, the local people knew about it and they had already given it a name. So they knew about them. They knew it very well,” he says.

In other parts of Kenya where the De Brazzas live, deforestation is a threat, as humans make room for agricultural land.

Mwenja says, “They have been saying that in probably 40 or 50 years there would be no suitable habitat remaining for the De Brazzas. But in this case what we found is that this is a new habitat relatively safe from human degradation. And this offers new hope for the species. They are not under serious threat, so we’re sure they’ll be there for longer.”

Mwenja says scientists aren’t sure how or when the De Brazzas arrived in the northern party of Kenya, since none were thought to exist east of the Great Rift Valley. The valley was formed about two million years ago and separated some species. However, the primate expert theorizes that at some point in its history there was some “connectivity,” as he puts it, between the eastern and western parts of the valley. A connection – possibly a wet forest corridor - that no longer exists.

Dr. Richard Leakey, chairman of Wildlife Direct and well-known paleontologist and conservationist, writes, “It is a critical issue for study as it puts climate change again as the most critical consideration as we plan for the future.”

A recent study – Primates in Peril – warns that at least 25 species of primate are at risk of extinction around the world.

A third of primates face extinction

Almost a third of the world's primates are in danger of extinction because of destruction of their habitats, a report by conservation groups has warned.

The report says many apes, monkeys and other primates are being driven from the forests where they live or killed to make food and medicines.

The research is being presented at the International Primatological Society (IPS) on the Chinese island of Hainan.

It was compiled by a team of 60 experts led by the World Conservation Union.

Asia threat

The report focuses on the fate of the world's 25 most endangered primate species, which are threatened by a depressing list of problems.

The authors say all the surviving members of these species combined would fit in a single football stadium.

Of particular concern are the Hainan gibbon from China and Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey from Ivory Coast, both of which have only a few surviving creatures left in the wild.

The report says the threat to primates is worst in Asia where tropical forests are being destroyed and many monkeys are being hunted or traded as pets.

It also argues that climate change is making some species more vulnerable.

Scientists have been warning for decades about the growing human threat to animal species around the world, but this study says we should be especially concerned about primates because they are the closest living relatives of humans.

Malaysia has lifted a 23-year-old ban on trading monkeys

'It seems to me that the humans are where they should not be with their rapid urbanization. What about exporting a few of them?'
Philip Cordrey

Malaysia has lifted a 23-year-old ban on trading monkeys for research and food and is in talks with several countries including Japan for possible export, the New Straits Times reported Friday.

The ban "was lifted recently," it said, although adding that the government has to put in place trade quotas before issuing licenses to wildlife exporting firms.

Negotiations were already underway for possible exports of macaques to Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan and Japan, the report said citing sources.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

As many as 10,000 Malaysian macaques were exported each year in the 1970s, mainly for laboratory research in the United States and Europe and to other countries as exotic food or pets, the report said, citing records.

The trade led to a drop in the macaque population and subsequently forced the government to impose the ban in the mid-1980s.

The report quoted an official as saying the macaque population has grown steadily since the ban and have now become a "nuisance and cause for many problems."

Rapid urbanization has also led to constant reports of humans getting attacked by the monkeys.

The official said it was better for the macaques to be exported than culled, the report said.

Scientist's arrest stirs concern

By MICHAEL ASTOR
Associated Press Writer

Dutch scientist Marc van Roosmalen is seen in the state of Amazonia, Brazil, in this Nov. 1997, file photo. Van Roosmalen, who has discovered more new monkey species in Brazil in the past decade than anyone else, was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for illegally trying to auction off the names of monkey species and keeping monkeys at his house without authorization.

• http://marcvanroosmalen.org

Dutch scientist Marc van Roosmalen's success at combing the Amazon for new monkey species has earned him international acclaim and recognition as one of the world's leading biologists. Time magazine named him one of its "Heroes for the Planet."
Now his work has earned him a more troubling distinction: a nearly 16-year prison sentence. He was jailed in June for nearly two months before a panel of judges freed him on bail Tuesday while he appeals.
Van Roosmalen was convicted of holding an Internet auction for the naming rights of two monkey species he discovered. He planned to use the proceeds to help preserve their habitats. But the court ruled the auction was illegal because van Roosmalen was working at Brazil's National Institute for Amazon Research at the time of the discoveries and said the naming rights belonged to the government.
Van Roosmalen blames the state's powerful logging interests and overzealous environmental regulators for orchestrating his conviction and accuses them of trying to discourage scientific investigation.
"They are criminalizing science," van Roosmalen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview this week from the Amazon city of Manaus.
Scientists have rallied around van Roosmalen, saying the case highlights a growing conflict between scientific research and Brazil's efforts to protect the Amazon with some of the world's toughest environmental laws.
"Dr. van Roosmalen's situation is indicative of a trend of governmental repression of scientists in Brazil," read a letter signed by nearly 300 international scientists at an Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation meeting in Mexico.
Some also suggest van Roosmalen - who sent monkey samples abroad for DNA analysis - may be a victim of widespread fears that scientists are conspiring to patent the valuable genetic information Brazil considers to be its national heritage.
Van Roosmalen also was convicted of keeping wild animals at his home without authorization, and selling a scaffolding that had been donated to the institute.
His lawyer, David Neves, calls the charges baseless and the sentence disproportionate.
"The sentence was very stiff, it's not normal," Neves said.
Prosecutors countered that Roosmalen's conviction sets an important example.
"Brazil isn't against science, but there is a code of ethics that exists," said an assistant to federal prosecutor Edmilson da Costa Barreiros Jr. "Science doesn't justify the seriousness of these crimes."
Van Roosmalen said he was thrown in jail without warning on June 15, after a sentencing hearing that neither he nor his lawyer attended.
"I spent six weeks in prison being threatened. I have some very powerful enemies," van Roosmalen said, alluding to logging and ranching interests in Amazonas state that he believes pressed for the charges.
Van Roosmalen did not explain how he made those enemies, but many of his discoveries were made in a region near the Madeira and Aripuana rivers where logging is increasing. His discovery of new species and plan to preserve habitat have the potential to make logging more difficult.
Federal prosecutors said if van Roosmalen believes he is being threatened or framed, he should file a formal complaint and they would be happy to investigate.
Many scientists say Brazil's regulations often hamper legitimate research, even as loggers and ranchers escape punishment for routinely ignoring environmental regulations.
At 60, van Roosmalen cuts a maverick figure, with long blond hair and a penchant for wearing shirts opened to the waist. The scientist, who is a naturalized Brazilian, has published scientific descriptions of five new monkey species, a new porcupine and a new peccary species, and says he has discovered about 20 additional monkey and other animal species.
"I think my father felt that if he followed all the necessary requirements, he'd never get anything done," Vasco van Roosmalen, the scientist's son, told The Associated Press. "He had the attitude that if he was doing the right thing, the rules were not important. That can get you into trouble in Brazil."
Van Roosmalen's lawyer said officials from Brazil's environmental protection agency, Ibama, seemed to have no problem with his client keeping monkeys at home in the past, and even brought him sick or orphaned monkeys.
Henrique Pereira, the Ibama chief of Amazonas state, said officials may have brought monkeys to van Roosmalen between 1996 and 2001, when his request to house wild animals was being considered, but stopped once the permit was denied and van Roosmalen was obliged to remove the monkeys.
Prosecutors also noted that van Roosmalen was fired from a government research institute for sending genetic material abroad, among other irregularities.
Congressman Jose Sarney Filho, a former environmental minister who led a commission investigating bio-piracy, said van Roosmalen was singled out as an outsider in a region rife with rumors that developed nations want to control the Amazon and its natural diversity.
"I think he's being made a scapegoat, but he gave them reason to go after him," said Sarney. "My impression was he was a disorganized scientist. You could do what he did without meaning any harm."