AR-News: Worldwide conservation group operates in South Carolina

Sun Apr 25 21:20:39 EDT 2004

From: primfocus at waste.org

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/8511325.htm
Posted on Sat, Apr. 24, 2004

Worldwide conservation group operates in South Carolina
BRUCE SMITH
Associated Press

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. - Passing through the gate of the International Primate
Protection League sanctuary, you sense you've taken a wrong turn and
mistakenly arrived on another continent.

The songs of gibbons rise on the morning air, and Shirley McGreal greets you
with her British accent.

It is here in a pine glen in rural South Carolina that McGreal has, for more
than a quarter century, supervised a worldwide effort to protect primates.

She founded the International Primate Protection League even earlier - in
Thailand 30 years ago - to protect threatened primates including gibbons,
monkeys and gorillas. Much of the league's work is directed at fighting
illegal trafficking of the animals.

The league's almost 10-acre compound with its cages and runs is home to 33
gibbons - some in their late 40s and many brought here after living years in
medical labs.

McGreal, who has a doctorate in education, had planned to become a college
professor.

Despite having no experience with primates, she decided she needed to do
something when, in the early 1970s, she saw gibbons, monkeys and other
primates crated for shipping at the Bangkok Airport and for sale at a market
in the city.

"I was really self-taught, although I had seen animals in zoos and
everything. I normally would have become a college teacher," she says. "It's
amazing I got out of the area and started a totally new life."

That life has resulted in a worldwide organization with 15,000 members and
field representatives in 31 nations working to preserve parks and
sanctuaries for primates and for laws to ban trafficking in the animals.

One of the league's early accomplishments was working with Thai students in
the mid-1970s to document the shipping of primates from Bangkok Airport -
work that resulted in that nation banning primate exports.

In subsequent years the league helped work for a ban on the export of Rhesus
monkeys from India and the seizure of chimps on sale in pet shops in Saudi
Arabia.

When the league celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, Prince Philip,
husband of Queen Elizabeth II, sent a letter of commendation.

"The League can look back with much pride on its very considerable
achievements ... most primate populations around the globe are in a better
state thanks to its activities," he wrote.

All this from just a desire to make a difference.

"When I was starting, I was obviously a nobody," recalls McGreal. She had no
background in biology or wildlife but did read a book titled "The Apes" by
Oxford University professor Vernon Reynolds.

So she wrote to tell him about the organization she envisioned.

"He could have done two things. He could have written back and said, 'I've
never heard of you. Who the hell are you?' Or he could have said 'How can I
help?'" McGreal says.

Reynolds offered his help and has been helping since, she recounts as she
walks through the sanctuary.

"For every animal we care for here, we care for 100 overseas" by supporting
other groups and sanctuaries, she adds.

"A lot of it we had to figure out. Some of it we read. But there has been no
'Jane Goodall' of the gibbons," says McGreal, referring to the
internationally known primate scientist. "There haven't been these 30-year
studies of gibbons."

The compound has cages with enclosed runs overhead, allowing the gibbons to
move around during the day. The weather in South Carolina is not too
different from Asia.

"It's very nice. They do have some chilly weather (in Asia), and gibbons
live up to 5,000 feet," she says.

The sanctuary's white-handed gibbons perhaps resemble humans more closely
than other primates, McGreal says. They live in family units and like to
sleep in the same place every night. They are territorial, and families must
be kept in separate runs and cages.

But unlike many humans, gibbons mate for life and, when their offspring get
old enough, they push them out to start their own lives. And, also unlike
humans, there seems to be little racial bias.

"No black gibbon would refuse to play with another color gibbon. They look
behind the color of the gibbon to the inner gibbon," McGreal laughs.

The sanctuary animals consume about 1,000 pounds of food a month, largely
fresh fruit and vegetables as well as bamboo from bamboo stands on the
property.

After 30 years, McGreal says the league has had its successes but more
remains to be done.

"The primate trade is really rampant," she says. "It was really bad 30 years
ago, then it really dipped in the monkey trade particularly. Then four or
five years ago when all this stuff about biowarfare got hot, the demand for
monkeys has gotten enormous. They want to study Ebola and anthrax and you
name it."

McGreal also worries that crates used to ship animals could provide a
vehicle for terrorist attacks.

"I've always said this huge and burgeoning trade in live animal traffic is a
way," she says. "Animal crates are not inspected. Something like a spitting
cobra - what customs agent is going to inspect a spitting cobra?"

the wild, cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. he is in front of it - axel munthe

"Never doubt that a small group of dedicated citizens can change the world. 
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."      Margaret Mead
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