A Book of Monkeys (and other primates)
A Book of Monkeys (and other primates) is a charming book to teach about our closest relatives, from lemurs and tarsiers, to gorillas and chimpanzees.
Can you tell a slow loris from a slender loris? Did you know that when it rains, orangutans make umbrellas using leaves? What’s the difference between a monkey and an ape?
Learn about their social and grooming habits(and how male gorillas impress female gorillas). Also learn the difference between a chimp and bonobo, which monkey swims and what a macaque likes to eat for lunch!
Tips to help cheeky chimpanzees!
Chimpanzees share most of our DNA, the only main difference is that they are covered in hair all over their bodies. All monkeys have tails, while true great apes don’t.
Native to African rainforests, they can learn sign language, make and use tools, walk on two legs, form deep family bonds and can live into their 80s.
Some brands of coconut milk send terrified monkeys up tall trees to retrieve coconuts, and they don’t even get to enjoy it. So always choose brands of monkey-friendly coconut milk in stores (Biona is one good brand, sold in tins).
Some welfare campaigners say that apes are so similar to us that they should be given human rights, which would stop such horrors occurring. You wouldn’t rip a human child from its mother, take out its teeth and have it chained for photos.
Welfare campaigners also urge tourists not to take ‘selfies’ with wild monkeys, as it just encourages the illegal pet trade, with many wrongly believing they are not wild animals.
A main welfare issue is that great apes carry zoonotic diseases, so can transmit disease to us and vice versa. Alas for this reason, they are often used in horrible animal experiments.
But they are still very different, which is why cures for AIDs in vivisection have never been found (so switch donations to humane medical research instead).
29 countries worldwide (including Austria and New Zealand) have now banned medical research on primates, but not yet the UK.
In the US, there is a campaign to release Wenka, the oldest chimp in a lab who is now in her 50s. Born in the lab, a third of all labs in the USA are elderly and have never known trees or love.
Cheeky Chimp Ale (to help endangered chimpanzees)
Fauna Brewing’s Cheeky Chimp low-alcohol pale ale, donates a portion from each tin to chimp rescue charities. All of their beers are vegan, each one helps a different species (African painted dogs, pangolins , cheetahs, red squirrels and other animal friends).
Always pop ring-pulls back over can holes before recycling (and pinch tops shut), to avoid wildlife getting trapped.
