Apeaware

1000Classrooms.org

2008-10-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

Here is a short description of my new project. Please visit the website and let me know what you think

www.1000CLASSROOMS.org

For Less Than 25 Cents You Can Help Feed a Hungry Child and Save an Endangered Gorilla!

1000 classrooms is a program to educate kids in Western Countries about some of the risks faced by the people and wildlife of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The program hopes to raise money and awareness by getting students in 1 000 different classrooms to donate $3/classroom to the Canadian Ape Alliance’s “Eggs for Kids” program. Setting the goal at $3/classroom ensures no child will be asked to donate too large an amount.

The program was started by 11 year old James Brooks of London, Ontario after he read about the Kahuzi-Biega Environmental School in the war ravaged eastern section of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The school was built to help the families of Park Rangers who protect very rare Eastern Lowland Gorillas. Many rangers have been killed and the Eggs for Kids program simultaneously helps the widows, the children, and the gorillas. With help from two Canadian organizations, Zerofootprint and the Canadian Ape Alliance, the women have begun a poultry co-operative where they raise chickens and sell eggs. The goal is to buy one egg per day for each child and teacher at the school, providing much needed nutrition to children who often do not have enough food. These children are the future rangers and environmentalists who will continue to protect the gorillas and other animals.

1000 CLASSROOMS seeks to guarantee the success of this program by having 1 000 North American school classes each agree to buy 1 dozen eggs for $3. This will allow the program to continue while teaching important lessons about citizenship, environmentalism, and the importance of protecting gorillas.
James is also using this project to launch a new chapter of Jane Goodall’s organization “Roots and Shoots” which provides help and encouragement to children and young adults to improve the world for all living things. Please visit www.1000classrooms.org

Can Apes Talk?

2008-09-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

Hi this entry is kind of long so I divided it into 3 parts. Feel free to get yourself a snack in between sections.

PART 1

Often when I tell people about apes they are very interested in whether or not apes can learn language. Scientists are very interested in this too.

First, non-human apes do not talk like we do because their vocal cords are different so they can only make a different set of sounds. Right now we cannot understand their sounds but some scientists think we might be able to learn to do so in the future,

Second, some scientists distinguish between “communication” and “language.” Saying that language is uniquely human and that apes do not understand different types of sentences (like questions) and do not think about how to express themselves. I think apes have language but it is different than human language and we just don’t understand yet how to appreciate their different methods of communication.

But that doesn’t mean that apes cannot learn to understand language and communicate to humans in other ways. The problem is for apes to develop “human language” they need to be taught by humans and sometimes it is hard to determine whether they are doing something just to get a reward or because they truly understand. Some scientists believe that animals cannot learn 'real' language, and that most of animal communication skills are ''innate." This means that animals would be able to communicate with other animals who are like themselves even if no others of their species ever showed them how to do so. These scientists wish to limit the definition of language to the exact languages that humans use, which they feel is unique.

These scientists used to argue that apes cannot learn language. They said that apes were just imitating or following commands to get what they wanted. They said that apes are like dogs, who can understand words but don't really understand sentences or think about language. Because apes don't talk like us they could not speak to defend themselves

Some apes have been taught to use sign language. Probably, the most famous example of an ape who was taught to sign is Koko the gorilla who has learned many signs and even combines signs together to make words that she didn’'t know. For example, she saw a zebra and used the signs for "white" and "tiger". We know that zebras are not white tigers and Koko almost certainly knows that zebras are not white tigers but that was the best way she had to describe a zebra.

Unfortunately, lots of sign language experiments were not very successful. This can be for a lot of reasons. Chimpanzees, orangutans, bonobos, and gorillas, hands are all a little different from humans so sometimes it is hard for them to directly imitate signs invented for humans to do. More importantly though how can you explain to an ape WHY they would want to learn sign language? Sometimes they don't want to because they would rather play and have fun. A very famous chimpanzee, named Nim Chimpsky, learned some signs very well but lots of people think he failed to acquire language. Nim spent lots of hours in a classroom being taught like people are taught but that probably is the wrong way to teach a chimpanzee anything.

PART 2

Another way apes use language is through keyboards with symbols called lexigrams. Lexigrams are small abstract pictures that represent one word each.

Dr. Duane Rumbaugh was the first scientist in the field of ape language to try to use his knowledge and research results to help children who are communicatively challenged by providing them with a keyboard. He gave these children keyboards and experimented with many different ways to help them learn the symbols on the keyboards.

The most famous language experiments with keyboards are done by Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh with bonobos, especially Kanzi, Panbanisha, and Nyota.

Kanzi learned how to use lexigrams as a baby when they were trying to teach his Mother Matata. Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh immediately figured out that the best way for apes to learn language is to expose them to language as baby just like humans learn language. She also made sure there were lots of lexigrams for things Kanzi is interested in so that he wanted to learn them. Another really smart thing she did was, instead of teaching Kanzi in a laboratory she and Kanzi would travel through a forest. That way, he learned the lexigrams in a natural environment doing the sorts of things that bonobos love to do. Exploring and playing are very important in bonobo society. Panbanisha is Kanzi’s sister and she has learned as much as Kanzi. Nyota is Panabanisha’s son and he is learning now. And because they have been raised with English around them being spoken they can understand spoken English extremely well. They too put lexigrmas together for words that don’t have lexigrams (Panbanisha called pizza “cheese bread” and when Nyota wanted fresh not frozen blueberries, he pointed to lexigrams for “blueberries, no, ice”) You can visit the website for the Great Ape Trust of Iowa to learn more about their amazing abilities and see videos.

When Dr. Duane Rumbaugh worked with children he found the very best way was the same way that worked with Kanzi. So humans and other apes may learn language in a very similar manner.

What happens though over and over is that scientists will say “Kanzi must do something to prove he has language”. Then after he does that, they say “it’s not language until he does this”. So if they keep changing the rules then it will never be seen as “language”. But what is language? Language let’s us communicate our ideas and our feelings and lets us express what we want and don’t want. Kanzi and Panbanisha and other apes are able to use the lexigrams humans have invented to express themselves very well.

PART 3

Dr. Jane Goodall thinks that language has allowed humans to develop in ways other apes haven’t., but that doesn’t make us smarter than apes or make us much different. She has proven that chimpanzees share the same feelings and concerns as humans do. Many scientists now know that we need to listen more closely to how apes communicate with each other before we can figure out how best for humans and non-human apes to communicate. Watching a gorilla or orangutan or bonobo or chimpanzee in a laboratory is fine; but if we put one of those scientists who thinks apes can’t develop language in the jungle with a troop of gorillas he/she would probably seem pretty inferior as a member of the troop and wouldn’t understand the ideas the gorillas share with each other.

Another problem is that scientists like things to be proven without “emotion” so that we are sure that they are facts. But would anyone think it would be a good and successful idea to teach a human baby “language” without giving the baby love and affection? The most successful ape language experiments with all species occur when there is a strong bond between the human and the non-human ape. However, that means you can’t always repeat the success in another situation or with a different ape. Does that mean it isn’t true just because it can’t be done over and over? Some scientists think so.

Apes do communicate. If we want to continue to learn from them and learn about ourselves we need to put them in an environment where they feel comfortable and safe and first we must make sure we teach them WHY they would like to learn our language. And that can only happen if they know we respect their own culture and ways of communicating. That is why Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh’s work is so important. And if we don’t learn to respect our fellow great apes then soon we’ll be the only surviving great ape and we too may go extinct.

Iowa Floods and the Great Ape Trust

2008-06-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

I just want to say thank you to all the people of Iowa who helped the bonobos and the orangutans at the Great Ape Trust to feel safe and protected. I know that the floods in Iowa have caused billions of dollars in damage and many people have suffered. Please do all you can to remember and help the people of Iowa and the rest of the midwest.

The Great Ape Trust was completely flooded but thanks to the hard work of the staff and lots of other people who gave help and donations, the bonobos and orangutans were able to stay in their homes and the important files and other things from the offices were saved. The Great Ape Trust does very important work. Their scientists and caretakers and all other staff are amazing people! There mission is


	Provide sanctuary and an honorable life for great apes
	Study the intelligence of great apes
	Advance the conservation of great apes
	Provide unique educational experiences about great apes

Thank you to everyone who made sure they can continue this mission

Ths is Azy who lives at the Great Ape Trust

Lola Ya Bonobo/Bonobo Paradise

2008-04-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

Today I thought I’d write a post about a great organization—it's called Lola Ya Bonobo and they give shelter to orphaned and injured bonobos! Lola Ya Bonobo means “Bonobo Paradise” in English .

Lola Ya Bonobo was founded by Claudine Andre. She does amazing things to help bonobos. She lived in Africa with her Dad who was a veterinarian and she started helping animals. One day she found a bonobo at a zoo who was sick and somebody said “don’t worry about this one, they never make it.” She did take care of the sick baby and the bonobo lived! Then more people started giving her bonobos and she didn’t know what to do with them so she started a sanctuary for bonobos near Kinshasa which is the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That is the only country in which bonobos live.

The bonobos at Lola Ya Bonobo are given a human “Mother” because they have lost their bonobo Mothers. These women look after the bonobos and feed and bathe them until they are old enough to mostly look after themselves.

It is very expensive to take care of so many bonobos but you can help. You can donate to Lola Ya Bonobo at their blog

http://lolayabonobo.wildlifedirect.org/

If you visit the blog, you can see a picture of Salonga the bonobo with her new baby just a few days old. Bonobo parents are very dedicated which is one reason why orphaned bonobos need so much love and attention. Lola Ya Bonobo is the only place in the world that looks after a large number of infant bonobos.

Also, you could “adopt “ a bonobo. Here is a picture of one I adopted. His name is Boyoma and he is a bit of a troublemaker but I think he is very nice.

Doesn't he look like fun?

You can visit the Lola Ya Bonobo website and read more about their work and how to adopt a bonobo

http://www.friendsofbonobos.org/

Without Lola Ya Bonobo, there would be even fewer bonobos in the world than there are now. Let’s do whatever we can to support their great work.

Great websites for Kids--bonbokids and KidsSaveApes

2008-04-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone.

This is just a quick blog that I wanted to do because of two other great websites for kids.

1) There is another 11 year olds who loves apes as much as I do and is completely committed to helping them. She has done lots of things and has an amazing website at

KidsSaveApes

Her name is Haley and be sure to look around the site and sign the petition.

Haley's Root and Shoots project was chosen to be one of 15 to present at a Roots and Shoots Fair in Boston that Jane Goodall will attend! Haley and I are going to make a great booth with lots of information about apes and saving apes

2) A new website just opened yesterday and you should definitely check it out. If you are a kid you should join and become a bonobo kid.

Bonobo Kids

They have launched a new book about a bonobo named Lucy

Bonobokids website is great it has cool music, a club to join, an interactive blog with contests, bonobo facts, and even a parents page.

The goals of bonobokids are:

--to raise money by selling the book (all proceeds go to the Bonobo Conservation Initiative and Roots and Shoots)

--to get kids involved in ape conservation

--and to help our planet

They have a great motto

SAVE THE BONOBOS, SAVE THE WORLD

I hope that every kid becomes a bonobo kid (and also joins KidsSaveApes)

I will post again soon and will be adding to my website so keep visiting Apeaware.org

School Projects You Can Do/Kanzi Speech

2008-03-30T05:36:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Thanks for reading my blog.

Today I am going to write about school projects on apes that you can do and then I will show you the speech I did on Kanzi, the bonobo in Iowa.

First, whenever you get to choose a topic for a project you can usually find something related to Apes:

For example, if you have something to do for history, you could write about Dian Fossey.

If you have something to do for geography, you could write about Africa and how ecosytstems function and are being destroyed.

If you have something to do for media, you can do "apes in entertainment" (see previous blog).

If you have something to do in Math....you probably wouldn't think you could but ....You could do charts or graphs and you can look at show how ape populations are changing! I did a Venn Diagram to show the differences and similarities of chimpanzees and bonobos.

Also whenever I have to do a speech, I do something on apes or the environment.

My science teacher likes the science projects I do because I talk about things not everyone knows about. Last year, I did my project on "coltan". Coltan is a mineral found in the Democratic Republic of Congo used in computers and cell phones and is sometimes illegally mined. The mining destroys the habitats of gorillas and bonobos and leads to hunting for bushmeat. We must make sure illegal and unsafe mining is stopped.

This year I am doing my project on palm oil. Most people think that using palm oil is a good ecofriendly alternative to fossil fuels. BUT to produce it the habitats of many creatures including orangutans and Sumatran tigers are being destroyed. Both could be extinct in the wild if we do not change our attitudes! Palm oil is also used in many foods and we should encourage all companies that make palm oil products to either change their ingredients or only use palm oil that comes from environmentally safe places....not from Orangutan habitats!

Please help save this little guy and all his relatives

Here is my speech

Mme. Fraser, Ladies and Gentlemen

When my friend was little, he was often a trouble maker. He would throw violent temper tantrums and he would try to trick people when he did not get his own way. Nobody would have guessed that he would grow up to be featured in dozens of magazines and would become a musician and play with Paul McCartney. My friend is also a painter whose paintings have sold for 1000’s of dollars. My friend’s name is Kanzi. Kanzi is a bonobo.

Kanzi

Bonobos as you may know are great apes who are closely related to chimpanzees. As famous as Kanzi is for his achievements as an artist what he is most known for are his remarkable language abilities. He can understand spoken English and can communicate using lexigrams, which are abstract symbols that represent words.

It is interesting how Kanzi first acquired language. When he was a baby at Georgia State University, the researchers were trying to teach his Mother Matata to use lexigrams but she couldn’t concentrate and always looked away. Little did they know that baby Kanzi was paying attention to everything that was going on. One day, they took Matata away from Kanzi and to everyone’s surprise Kanzi showed he was able to use all the symbols that his Mother had trouble learning. For the first time, an ape baby had learned language like a human baby does--by listening to people and observing them.

Dr. Sue Savage Rumbaugh began working closely with Kanzi. Kanzi learned more and more symbols and started combining them to tell people what he wanted and how he felt. Because bonobo vocal cords are not like humans’ he is not able to actually speak but he can tell us a great deal through gestures and lexigrams. Kanzi now understands hundreds of symbols and uses them in sentences.

Kanzi is also famous for makng tools. People used to think that only humans could make and use tools but Kanzi sharpens rocks into knifes to open boxes to get food out of them. One story about him and his sister Panbanisha shows that Kanzi can think in ways that most animals can’t demonstrate. Having a “theory of mind” means being able to think from the view of another person. Some scientists believed only humans could have a theory of mind. One day Kanzi and Panbanisha were each trying to make tools to open a box of food. Kanzi was able to do it but Panbanisha couldn’t make a sharp enough stone. Kanzi tried to help Panbanisha but the scientists would not allow him to so they decided to take Kanzi away. Kanzi hid a stone that he had used where Panbanisha could easily find it and use it. This shows that he is considerate and could think from Panbanisha’s pont of view. Now he lives in Iowa with a group of bonobos and likes to help and look after his nephew Maisha who is the smallest in the group.

I first heard about Kanzi from a book of animal facts that said “a bonobo named Kanzi had learned to light a barbecue and cook his own food”. I thought that was interesting so I emailed Dr. Sue. She suggested making a video for the bonobos to explain who I am and show them what I do. I have sent several videos and I have been able to visit Kanzi and his family twice. Before my last visit I had sent a video in which I showed Kanzi a ball and asked him if he wanted it. He told the caretaker Judy he did want it so she emailed and told me. A month later, I visited with a group of people who were doing a tour of the Great Ape Trust. Before we went into the bonobo house we were told to go in very quietly because bonobos can be shy. Kanzi knew I was visiting that day and when we were all sitting down, he came out and he looked around the whole crowd and then when he saw me, he went right over to his lexigram board and typed “Ball Ball Ball” because he remembered that I promised to bring one to him. Luckily, I remembered too.

Bonobos are extremely endangered and need our help. I hope from my stories about Kanzi you can understand that bonobos are incredible creatures and that we should protect them. Kanzi once painted a flag for “ape nation” because he knows that apes are threatened and he would want you to do all you can to respect and protect apes.

Thanks for reading my blog today. Please post if you have any comments or advice.

Stop Using Apes in Entertainment

2008-03-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Welcome to my blog. I am going to post here from time to time on different topics. Some of my future blogs will be about school projects kids can do, things for teachers, ape language, great places like Lola Ya Bonobo and the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, and of course my friend's website

www.freewebs.com/kidssaveapes

Please make sure you visit and if you are a kid be sure to join!

Today, I am going to write about why we shouldn't use apes in entertainment. When I was younger I loved to watch monkeys and apes no matter what they were doing. Now I realize how endangered many primates are and how bad it is to use them for entertainment, especially apes.

Why is it so bad even though many people thing it is fun and funny to dress up chimps and other apes like people?

1. People like to see them dressed up because they can "seem like people" but that is exactly why we should stop it. Apes are so much like humans that we definitely need to give the respect we would give each other. Simply laughing at them, is unkind and cruel.

2. To train apes to act requires them to live very unnatural lives and sometimes the trainers are very mean to them. Even if the trainers are trying to be nice, the apes are very often confined and forced to live an unhappy life. Further, chimpanzees and orangutans can only be used in entertainment for a few years before they become too strong to control on movie sets. Then they can live for decades longer but too often people no longer want to keep them and they end up living very sad lives. Some of the lucky ones end up in sanctuaries but even then they do not know how to behave with others of their species.

3. Using apes in entertainment leads people to buy apes which leads other people to capture and smuggle apes out of the wild.

4. Because people see chimpanzees so often in entertainment, many people think that they are not endangered and then don't do as much to help them.

5. Movies and televsion shows often give the wrong impression about apes. For example, gorillas are often portrayed as ferocious predators when really they are very gentle herbivores.

6. Seeing apes being "fun" to have around the house in movies, makes people think that they would make good pets. The truth is APES ARE NOT PETS! To give apes in captivity a good life requires much more than any house can offer. For one thing, they should be near other apes of the same species. Just as humans should not be separated from other humans. A chimp in a house probably feels like he or she is in jail!

Here is a link to an article on the subject

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2006-03-15-reel-apes-campaign_x.htm

So next time you see apes in tv ads and movies, don't just laugh at them think of what they might have go through and of how endangered all great apes (except humans) are.