Primate People
Saving Nonhuman Primates
through Education, Advocacy and Sanctuary
Primate People
Saving Nonhuman Primates
through Education, Advocacy and Sanctuary
Available at:
AmazonUniversity of Utah PressGoodreads
ISBN : 9781607811534
Publisher: University of Utah Press (April 2012)
The lives of anymals matter not just to us—not just in light of our selfish interest in diversity—but to them.
Introduction to Primate People
A significant contribution to the field of critical animal studies . . . but also to environmental ethics, law, biology, cognitive ethology, philosophy, and the social sciences. A useful and moving book.
Carol Gigliotti, editor of Leonardo's Choice: Genetic Technologies and Animals.
For all the misery that nonhuman primates have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of humanity, Primate People is a forward-looking book of hope.
Marc Bekoff, author, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
This book is lovely. . . . Chapters are written by many people from around the world, most of whom work quietly with primates out of the public eye. . . . Strongly recommended.
Shirley McGreal, Founder of International Primate Protection League
This collection of essays offers a haunting vision of what happens to macaques and rhesus monkeys behind the closed doors of primate research facilities, written by people who have entered these places either before they knew what to expect or as undercover agents.
Marc Bekoff, renown author, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Collectively, these essays are an urgent call to action for humans, since it is our greed and indifference that have pushed nonhuman primates into this rapid rate of extinction. Strongly recommended for general readers interested in primate conservation and the ethical issues surrounding the human exploitation of primates.
Library Journal
This book is all I'd hoped...a treasure trove containing stories and information that can't be found in any other book.
Nina on Amazon
This was a very interesting read covering a variety of primate species and the problems facing them. A must read for anyone interested in primate conservation, animal testing or other environmental concerns.
Megolasaurus on Amazon
From smuggling and legal trafficking to the transformation of tropical rain forest habitats into agricultural land to the horrific lives of laboratory primates, these insightful essays document the many threats facing primate populations. Particularly touching are the experiences of sanctuary volunteers who care for some of the less familiar (but no less vulnerable) primates such as gibbons and woolly monkeys.
Library Journal
Primate People is written in an easy and concise manner for public consumption and thus is an effective tool for drawing much-needed attention to the use of primates in laboratories and the immense work of caring for them in sanctuaries.
The Quarterly Review of Biology
Through the voices of sanctuary founders, seasoned scholars, adventuresome volunteers, and undercover investigators, Primate People introduces readers to a baboon hopelessly caught in a snare, a chimp who has become reluctant to trust humanity, and number 16162—a timid macaque trapped at a primate research lab who loved to play with mirrors but was never given so much as a proper name. Primate People vividly depicts the many reasons why, with the exception of humanity, every primate species is at risk, at the same time demonstrating the power and importance of individual initiative and organized activism. Primate People is full of tenderness, courage, and hope.
For more about Primate People see:
— Introduction to Primate People
Primate People
Introduction by Lisa Kemmerer
A new species of Titi monkey was discovered and recorded in western Bolivia in 2004 (Madidi Titi), joining more than four hundred other recorded primate species. What do most of us know about these many other primates—about the proboscis monkey, Hainan gibbon, pygmy tarsier, or slow loris?
Earth was once rich with primates, but each species—except one—is now endangered because of just one primate: Homo sapiens. Meat industries threaten both South American and African primates. Roughly one hundred primate spe- cies live in Brazil, a nation where rain forests are leveled to pasture cattle in order to export meat to wealthy consumers. Africa’s bushmeat trade (trade in non- human primate flesh) has been augmented by logging roads that wind deep into once isolated habitat. West Africa’s bonobos, perhaps our closest relatives, have been devastated by the bushmeat trade: “In one human generation, 90 percent of the Bonobos have disappeared” (Brown 2008, 102). Miss Waldron’s red colobus monkeys (also of West Africa) have been driven to probable extinction by the human appetite for their flesh.
Who were these primates, and what forces destroyed their existence? How many people outside of West Africa knew of Miss Waldron’s red colobus mon- keys? Would we care more about these individuals if we knew something of their lives and their suffering? Will we change what we purchase if we learn that our consumer choices harm and endanger other primates? Once informed, might we support those who work on behalf of endangered primates, or lobby for change ourselves? If we do, can we save Earth’s many and wondrous nonhuman primates from ongoing, extreme suffering and the finality of extinction? My hope is that the answer is, “Yes.”
Scientists treat animals like petri dishes—recording emotional distress and physiological terror like weather fluctuations on a barometer.
Introduction to Primate People
Might does not make right; self-interest—even desperate self-interest—does not justify exploiting others.
Introduction to Primate People