this is so absolutely touching. i love seeing their pure joy at going outside~~being together. out of solitary cruel confinement.
this has to make you smile!











Like prisoners emerging from a lifetime behind bars, a group of chimpanzees step blinking into the sunlight with what appears for all the world to be a wave and a smile.

And they have much to be joyful about. For this is the first time they have felt grass under their feet and breathed fresh air for 30 years.

Though a few of the chimps were born in captivity, most were kidnapped from African jungles as babies and flown to Europe, where they were locked in metal laboratory cages to be used in a long series of experiments.their ordeal finally ended on Tuesday when the 38 surviving chimps were released into a £3million sanctuary in Austria, allowing them to feel the nurturing contact of their fellow chimps after years of being separated by bars and bullet-proof glass.

I saw this & it broke my heart.

I think stupid people should be used for experiments, not the animals. I say that sincerely.

30 years?? OMG, that is horrible. I agree with Duchess. Torture the humans.

People are so fucked up that I am rarely moved to tears over their stories but I find the stories about the animals hugely distressing.

Well at least they never knew what they were missing.

You don't care about the animals.

I bet you've already made plans to murder & butcher as many as you can this upcoming season.

I saw the new planet of the apes movie last weekend. Go Go ape power!

he was rescued from a poacher's backpack. sweet little guy.


from the daily fail
With fearful eyes and defensive body language, baby gorilla Shamavu does not realise how close he came to being sold by poachers on the black market for £25,000.

The one-and-a-half-year-old animal was rescued by the Congolese Wildlife Authorities rangers earlier this month in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga national park in the latest sting operation designed to halt an upsurge in trafficking.

The illegal trading, which is threatening the existence of the already endangered species, is being stamped out - this was the fourth such incident since April - but there are still many gorillas who are not as fortunate as Shamavu.

According to the latest figures there are believed to be only 790 mountain gorillas left on the planet - and almost 500 of them are found in the Virunga volcanoes, a conservation area, which is spread across DR Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.

The other 300 or so creatures can be found in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda.

The Congolese Wildlife Authorities have begun to pose undercover in order to catch out poachers - and that is how Shamavu was rescued on October 6, in Kirumba, a town on the western border of the national park.

If you are a cell phone user, you are indirectly responsible for gorilla death in the Republic of Congo.

Look up coltan (Columbite-tantalite).

They eat gorillas there. They call it "bush meat."

Aww. That last pic! I think my heart just tried to beat. Oh wait. No. It was a burp.

Still, cute little rilla!

Where the hell was 'Ma" Gorilla when junior wandered off or was snatched?

the poachers probably killed her. :(

Those things will tear your arms off and use them for backscratchers.

Ma is a poi in baby's disappearance. She has hired representation and will not be speaking to the media...without compensation.

hahaha he begged it from a visitor.

With temperatures reaching up to 32 degrees C. in Jakarta this week, it was no surprise that this hot orangutan was trying to find measures to cool down.
The hungry ape, named Bendot, was spotted savoring the popsicle at Rangunan Zoo in Indonesia’s capital.

EH?



A mandrill at Jerusalem Zoo is struggling to hear his friend.

Mandrills are the most colorful mammals in the world.They mainly live in dense rainforests and coastal forests and live in groups of up to 600 individuals in the wild.

They are the world's largest monkeys and are usually found in the tropical rainforests of west Africa.

Those things are scary looking!

Jerusalem Biblical Zoo

photographer Tchvertkin said: 'I've never been in a zoo where they let you walk right up the animals so this was a pleasant surprise and a great opportunity to take some interesting pictures.

'But I didn't expect them to be as tame as they were. One of them was so cheeky that he ran right up to me and tried to take the camera away.

Lemurs are primates found only on the African island of Madagascar and some tiny neighboring islands.

Great pics of our distant cousins!

Are we all related to Julie?