Check out the January issue of Animal World USA Magazine by clicking on the cover and downloading the pdf. A fantastic review of I’m Lucy: A Day in the Life of a Young Bonobo appears on page 10!

http://www.animalworldusa.org

Then be sure to read on as this is a fantastic magazine dedicated to the world’s animals and the people who love them! Also, make sure to check out Animal World USA’s “Weeks for the Animals” to see if your city has one coming soon.

http://www.weeksfortheanimals.org

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Kanzi with Lexicon video from the Great Ape Trust

Most Bonobo Lovers are doubtless familiar with the outstanding work by Sue
Savage-Rumbaugh with a group of bonobos, the most famous member being Kanzi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanzi.

I have had the privilege of getting to know Sue, and a few months ago had
the amazing experience of visiting her and the bonobo group at the Great Ape
Trust of Iowa in Des Moines http://www.greatapetrust.org/. I was allowed to
go inside the glass enclosure such that there was only a chicken-wire-type
separation between me and them, so there I was, experiencing their reality
after many years of being a fan in the bleachers. Kind of like it must have
been in the ’60s if you got to be in the front row of a Beatles concert!

I had cool interactions with Kanzi’s foster mother Matata (his birth mother
is Lorel, Lucy’s mom in I’m Lucy) and with his sister Panbanisha
http://www.greatapetrust.org/bonobo/meet/panbanisha.php, but most of the
time Kanzi and I sat, face-to-face, as close to one another as we could get
given the chicken wire, staring into each other’s eyes and hanging out.
Occasionally he’d indicate something on his keyboard, but mostly it was me
telling him how wonderful I thought he was and his apparently taking it in
with deep pleasure.

While it’s obvious in the photographs in I’m Lucy, it was only after looking
into Kanzi’s eyes that I took in the fact that bonobo irises go across the
whole eye rather than being a central circles surrounded by white like our
eyes. This has the amazing consequence that it feels like gazing into dark
pools of, well, wisdom. I sometimes have trouble making prolonged eye
contact with another human — there’s this tendency to look away — but with
Kanzi I think we could have done it all day.

The facilities at the Great Ape Trust are splendid — lots of uncultivated
land where they can wander about and set up their own activities. I’ll be
reporting on all this in future posts. Meanwhile, here’s to Sue and the many
others at Great Ape Trust who are caring so kindly for these bonobos and
helping us understand their extraordinary capabilities.

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Don’t forget about our awesome contest! Click Here for Details.

The Bonobo Conservation Initiave and the Kokolopori-Falls Church Sister City Partnership are participating in the 2008 Global Giving Project Challenge. Their project is to make college possible for 70 Congolese students. They have until November 20th to get donations of $10 or more from 75 different people in order to win a permanent spot on the Global Giving website that raises awareness about their cause and helps get them more donations.

These donations will support the Djolu Technical College of rural sciences in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the only college in a 40,000 square mile area. The school offers 70 bright, motivated young people in this impoverished area their only chance of getting a college degree.

• $10 pays a professor to teach a two-hour class for 30 students
• $20 buys enough textbooks for one student per year
• $35 covers one year of room and board for one student
• $100 pays one year’s tuition for one student

To donate visit the Global Giving website and make a difference for these 70 students today!

Thanks!

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I know that kids can’t vote…but I’d like you all to know something: the youth vote (voters 18-29 years old) made a huge difference in this election – coming out to vote in record numbers and voting for change. This proves to us that our children are our future – and President-elect Barack Obama is urging you to be active in this role.

President Obama has asked us all to participate in the change we seek for our country and our world. Here are some important things he’s asking us to help with:

1. The environment. Basically this encompasses everything that we talk about on this blog: turning off lights, recycling, using eco-friendly products, reducing waste, conserving energy and working towards alternative energy solutions.

2. Community service. This piece is so important to Obama that he is offering help with college tuition in exchange. There are always many opportunities for community volunteering – check with your school, church, temple or with any cause-based non-profit organization for suggestions.

3. Being a good person. President Obama led by example throughout his historic campaign. In the face of lies and insulting attacks, he stayed positive, he presented the facts, but did not also become negative and he stayed on message. At the end of the day, he ran a respectful campaign and earned magnificent respect – and the top job in the United States. How can you follow his lead in your own life?

Many of you followed this election in school…is there another request from President Obama that we didn’t mention but that really got your attention? How will you join our country in making the world a better place?

Can’t wait to hear from you!

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Just a reminder to all of our United States of America readers…

Please vote tomorrow! And if you aren’t old enough, encourage your family, friends and teachers to vote!

Here’s to democracy at work…and the future of our lovely planet!

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Our favorite 11-year-old, James Brooks, in cooperation with the Canadian Ape Alliance, has started a project called 1000 Classrooms. James hopes to get 1000 western classrooms to donate $3 each to buy a dozen eggs from the widows of Park Rangers killed protecting the apes. The eggs will be given to the children at the Kahuzi-Biega Environmental School in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Because of this purchase, the widows earn an income, the children and teachers are given nutritious food and the apes are safer because there is less demand for food!

The Eggs for Kids Program makes sure every kid and every teacher gets an egg per day!
So how can you help? Any classroom can get involved from preschool to University. All you have to do is talk to your teachers and ask them to visit www.1000classrooms.org.
Each and every kid can make a big difference with only a small donation!

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Check out our latest video about our Clean Up the Beach event! Spread the word!

Bonobo Kids and I’m Lucy: A Day in the Life of a Young Bonobo are working hard to teach kids and their families about bonobo apes AND about the important connection between bonobos and people. Actually, that connection exists between all things and beings – plants, animals, people. We are all connected and our daily actions have a real effect on our world. Be part of the solution!

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Every year, scientists work for the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an organization that works on many projects to conserve all types of animals, ecosystem and plant species, to put together a new Red List. The Red List is an up-to-date list of this year’s threatened species.

For 2008, scientists from Conservation International, another organization that works to take care of important species, landscapes and seascapes on Earth, are working in Barcelona to discover new and old endangered or threatened species.

This year’s list will detail more than 45,000 endangered species! That’s a lot. Even though this doesn’t talk about ALL species on Earth, it gives us an idea about our planet’s health in general! For example the Malayan Tapir has recently been added to the list, their population has declined mainly because of climate change, which is a direct result of global warming.

Things like this growing list of endangered species are just another reason to start paying more attention to global warming and how its affecting everyone and every thing!

Remember just making small changes in our own daily life makes a huge difference! You are a powerful planet protector. Here are a few easy things to do:

• Walk or ride your bike to school.
• Get a reusable water bottle and stop using plastic water bottles.
• Change all of your lightbulbs to CFL (compact flourescents).
• Recycle!
• Eat organic.
• Turn lights off when you aren’t using them.
• Unplug lights, cell phone chargers, printers and TVs when they aren’t in use.

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Bonobos have been thought to only hunt small rodents, squirrels and forest antelopes. But a recent study published by Martin Surbeck and Gottfried Hohmann in the Oct. 14th issue of Current Biology, says something else. Researchers reported the first evidence of wild bonobos hunting and eating the young of other primate species – not apes, but small monkeys.

The interesting thing about the bonobo’s hunting pattern is that they, unlike chimpanzees, include the females in the hunting process. For chimps hunting is about male dominance and bonding. The involvement of the females in the hunt may reflect the bonobo’s social patterns.

The recent study is making people really stop, think and look deeper because bonobos have been featured as being peaceful and non-violent and now because of this study, some people are assuming this is no longer true.

With all of these new discoveries, we were eager to talk to our partner, Sally Jewell Coxe, the President of the Bonobo Conservation Initiative. Here’s what she has to say on the matter:

“It is a fascinating and important discovery, which certainly merits further investigation—to learn if this is a cultural, site-specific phenomenon, as it has never been observed at other study sites—and to fully understand its context and implications. It is interesting to note, as Surbeck and Hohmann’s paper does, that at one site, bonobos have been observed to engage in mutual grooming with colobus monkeys and at another location, when bonobos opportunistically caught monkeys, they did not eat them.

However, what I find particularly curious is the fact that the media seems to be using this new evidence to go on a feeding frenzy of its own!  If one judged by the surge of headlines hitting the press, you’d think that bonobos were violent warmongers, which is certainly not the case.

For example, the Reuters headline, “Hippie apes make war as well as love,” gives a false impression. Hunting does not constitute war-making nor does predation constitute aggression. Bonobos do not wage “war” against other bonobo groups, in contrast to the deadly, premeditated attacks witnessed between chimpanzee groups fighting over territory.  To make matters worse, the lead sentence of the Reuters article falsely states that “bonobos actually hunt and eat other great apes.”  Monkeys are NOT apes! Nor do bonobos even share the same habitat with any of the other great ape species.  It’s a shame that a respected news outlet such as Reuters failed to get the most basic facts straight.

While this notable discovery does increase our knowledge about bonobo behavior, it does not negate the fact that bonobos maintain a markedly cooperative and peaceful society.”

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Okay, so we know that you can’t actually vote in this November’s presidential election, but you can still make a difference!

We’re going to make a little assumption here. We assume that you are reading this blog and visiting our website because you care about the environment, right? Well, as you may have guessed, we care too. And that’s why we’re voting for Barack Obama.

He truly cares about our planet, and his plans to help the environment when he becomes President of the United States say this loud and clear!

Just some of the things Senator Obama will do as president:

• Promote energy alternatives like solar and wind power.
• Work on recycling programs.
• Make all products safe from heavy metals like lead and mercury.
• Protect animals.
• Support children’s rights to a safe and healthy planet.
• Safeguard the natural wonders of our country: The Great Lakes, the national parks, the forests, the oceans…

So, how can you make a difference when you can’t vote? Here are some ways (and please send us more ideas if you have them!)

1. Do your own research: read articles about the candidates and watch the debates!
2. Tell people old enough to vote who you would vote for and why.
3. Write a letter about who you would vote for and why to your local newspaper.
4. Explain to people why the environment and policies to protect it are so important.
5. Wear shirts or buttons with your candidates name or face clearly displayed.
6. Volunteer at a local campaign office or event – even if it’s just by bringing those hardworking volunteers some cookies!
7. Always speak up for what you believe. Your voice and your passion can and will make a difference!

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