Helping Hands ~ What Inspires

Caring for a capuchin monkey is similar to caring for a human child if the kid had super-human strength AND a tail. She was like a very hairy child with thumbs on both feet and hands who requires nearly as much time as a human child. (Probabally shouldn’t keep a kid in a cage… with a lock.) Foster parents bathe and diaper their monkeys so the monkey is a part of the family’s activities.

A foster family’s responsibility involves loving and caring for a monkey in their home. Caring for a monkey is fun and rewarding, but it is not easy. Two-out-of-three is still very time consuming, entails some expense, and requires a considerable amount of patience.

The Hardest Part: Foster parents must be willing to return the monkey when Helping Hands determines necessary. This can be very difficult. Foster families invest time, energy, and love in caring for their foster monkey. The primary comfort for foster parents is the knowledge that the monkey will eventually go to a disabled person who will live out his or her life with more freedom, independence, and companionship because of this special friend. It is the gift of part of one’s self.

Buy, print, share, make others aware of Helping Hands Monkeys.

Did you know… the earliest known sharks date back more than 420 million years ago, before the time of the dinosaurs?

[See the video below]

United Nations wildlife trade body denied three proposals for cross-border commerce of sharks threatened with extinction. Conservationists argued fishing for sharks is unregulated, but Japan led the opposition, arguing management of shark populations should be left to regional fisheries groups, not CITES.

Only one new marine species is protection by the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the Porbeagle, a shark that resembles the Mako and is fished for its meat. Bids to impose a global trade ban on seven species of precious coral also fell short of the required two-thirds majority.

The shark species left unregulated commerce are; Scalloped Hammerhead, Oceanic White Tip, and the Spiny Dogfish. The fish are often tossed back into the water after their precious fins have been sliced away. And we thought Michael Vick was a monster? Yes he is a monster. We cannot justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behaviors; it’s not a sliding-scale. Millions of Hammerhead and White Tip sharks are taken to satisfy a psychotic appetite for sharkfin soup, a prestige food to the uninformed, selfish, greedy, mostly wealthy, mindless classes of morons. Two decades ago these two shark species were common semi-coastal and open-water sharks, but  demand for fins have slashed populations by 90 per cent in several regions.

In the Gulf of Mexico, the White Tip is 99% depleted.

Gus Sant, a shark expert at wildlife monitoring group TRAFFIC said: “The decision not to list all of these sharks is a conservation catastrophe. The current level of trade in these species is simply not sustainable.”

“We see clearly now the Japanese motivation for opposing all these marine species proposals,” said Anne Schroeer, a Madrid-based economist with Oceana. “For the whales, they say they are catching them traditionally. For the bluefin tuna, they say they are eating it. But for the sharks, there is nothing but pure economic self-interest.”

More in this FLOG on human cruelty toward sharks, read hawaii-shark-feeding-business see the video clip and hear what Stephen Frink has to say about his favorite animal and how important animals in the Ocean.

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Online Coral Reef Resource Now Available at reefrelieffounders.com

Dear friends and Reef Relief founders Craig and DeeVon Quirolo retired from the Key West based grassroots organization last July, only to begin a comprehensive effort to provide an online resource on coral reefs.  Their new website provides all the award-winning educational tools, grassroots strategies, project reports and images of coral reefs assembled during their work over the past 23 years in the Florida Keys and throughout the Caribbean protecting coral reefs.  You can find it at www.reefrelieffounders.com.
“We just wanted to insure that others can learn from our experiences and continue the important work of saving endangered coral reefs,” noted DeeVon in a recent note.  “Craig’s image archive from all the years he monitored coral reefs, especially those revealing new coral diseases, are invaluable to researchers, students, media, divers and the general public to learn about coral reefs.  We hope to inspire a new generation of sea

Madrid — The Oceana Ranger catamaran is equipped with a robot that has dived down to 500 meters depth to film species that are rarely spotted, or have never even been seen, in the Canarian archipelago.

The goal of the expedition is to identify areas that should be turned into marine protected areas. Only 2.7% of the EU’s marine surface area is protected, but the United Nations calls for 10%.

Oceana has found around a dozen species in the Canary Islands whose existence in the archipelago was unknown until now. Glass and rock sponges, ball, white and black coral, and armored searobin are some of the species that have been found. A wide variety of rare species, or species for which hardly any biological information is known, were also able to be filmed live, including channeled rockfish, anglerfish, silver and pink gallo fish, fan coral, bathyal sea fans, Venus fly-trap anemones, and lollipops sponges.

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HD PodCast - Got KIDS? Too bad.

Too bad more television shows are not produced for young kids. I hear complaints from parents who state most children programming is animation cartoon based. One DVD called The Reef has animated fish, but they don’t teach anything about the Ocean. The fish character speak English, have human-like roles, engage in social situations about every aspect of life with little to nothing about the reef or fishes. Have you ever seen a fish talk? So what is the educational message?

How about a television show about the Ocean in a format kids can enjoy? Young kids can’t experience the reef so let’s bring the reef to them.

Perhaps there is enough kids programming to satisfy the federal mandate, but few are designed to engage kids with science on their level or drive them to the local aquariums. Just more of the same after school cartoons. Boring…

With the exception of the host, this is a concept for kids. Unfortunately I missed the awesome opportunity to attend this year’s National Geographic Producers Workshop @ WGBN Boston. Gives my team a year to wait and hope we are selected next time. What a team!

• Host: Paul Dymon (temporary, cheap, stand-in for real talent)
• Voice of GOD: Bob Cummings (free labor)
• Announcer: Garry Lee Rosenberg (illegal alien)
• Music: (stolen from) Garry Lee Rosenberg
• ICE: Remote from Key West (slave labor)

NO ACT OF KINDNESS SHALL GO UNPUNISHED!

Best view is the HD PodCast on iTunes:  “CLICK” or try the pop-up player.

The second video is seven minutes filled with fun and laughs.

I found a very interesting government study based on research from 25 nations took park in the International Polar Year, 2007 – 2008. Follow both links.  Over 500 researchers [collectively and cooperatively] discovered dozens of new species in the polar seas.  That’s right seas with an s, plural.  Both polar seas have species in common that are just now discovered.

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We have seen out into space to the beginning of time; the big bang. We can detect what a star is burning for fuel thousands of light years away, and yet the earth beneath us holds so many unsolved mysteries.

The newly discovered species are mostly invertebrates; simple life-forms without backbones, but all total as many as 235 species were found in both polar seas, including five whale species, six sea birds, and nearly 100 crustaceans.

The question is; With the same species at both poles separated by nearly 7,000 miles, where the pole regions connected in the evolutionary process? During the last ice age, or maybe the ice age before that?

The Earth is a dynamic planet meaning it is always changing, evolving in random cycles and that includes temperature. We just happen to live during a very nice period, so enjoy it.  But also take care of it as best you can.

NEWS FLASH: buried on PAGE 14 - Arctic ice sheet discovered

Earlier this week it was reported the global ice sheet was underestimated.  In their defense, there is a tremendous amount of ice on the Arctic Circle.  How much ice was found amounts to the size of California.

On the other hand: How the heck do you miss something the size of California?  The good news is we have more ice.

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PodCast # 008 is about another predator. Why? Because the web is good for bringing quick hits, shock value, what I call “kick-in-the-ass” content. Suddenly here comes HD2O.tv underwater video where everything is soooo sloooow, or is it.

• Ocean Fun Fact: Did you know the baracuba can swim at speeds reaching 30 MPH? Take a look at this Great Barracuda he’s hunter and predator they may follow divers, as they do larger fish, in the hopes of scavenging remains.

About this shot: As quickly as I got “ICE” to turn the camera this cuda snapped up a small fish near his leg.  Look closely; the minnow is in his teeth as he turns off to eat what remains.

Good thing barracuda don’t like the taste of humans?  You bet! because he sees us long before we see him. We’d have no chance, so remember ” Do No Harm” in hopes that no harm come to you or your fingers which could be gone in a second if you mess with this magnificent animal in his domain!

Remember: these clips are HD so they are large.  I recommend using the ‘pop-up player’ and they may take a moment to start.  For best viewing jump over the iTunes and subscribe to our HD Podcast! For absolute best viewing get the DVD from our store here, Or we send a barracuda to your home for a little visit.

Ask a Scientist: How sharks breathe varies by species :: Saving the Sharks :: Care2 Groups.

This is an excellent explanation of how fish and some sharks draw water with muscles to breathe.

Answer-link :   (by Dale Madison, professor of biology at Binghamton University):

Video Post: Stupid people in South Africa sell the chance to jump into a cage for a cheap thrill while they jerk food from the sharks, from the safety of a boat. They take tourist to ’shark alley’ and tease these majestic animals. Sharks are the top of the food chain, and the operator is teasing them calling it Eco-Tourism.  If this is somehow appealing to your ego? Imagine someone knocked your lunch on the floor. Then your friends come along and they jerk their lunch too.  Would you bite back? What happens to the next diver who doesn’t feed the shark? Now resident sharks in these fast food feeding zones expect man to show up with fast-food which might one day be a human life. This activity has altered the sharks behavior.

Take a look at what happens in this video. I can only hope the government of South Africa takes immediate action against the exploitation of Nature’s most magnificent predator before the next…

VIDEO in this FLOG ARTICLE - People who know my wife and me know we were the foster family for a Capuchin monkey. Lacey spent a few years with our family and we worked with her every day. We knew that training would be paramount in the level of care she could provide.

The smarter the animal the harder it is to train and the longer it takes to develop skills. Dogs, we can all agree, are pretty smart. Next to a primate intelligence however there is a large gap. They don’t have the same set of skills. A real smart dog is the golden retriever, which is why this bread is used as Service Dogs.

It takes two years to get a Canine Companion for Independence up an running. (not to mention about $10,000) Compare that to a Helping Hands Capuchin, one of the most social and most intelligent primates, which takes 12 - 15 years.

Granted the Capuchin service monkey has a greater responsibility caring for a high-quad. I recently found this clip on the Helping Hands web site and wanted to share it here. Be prepared to be amazed!

Welcome to Monkey College at Helping Hands.

 

 Monkey College at Helping Hands: Play Now | Play in Popup

My family fostered a Tufted Capuchin monkey named Lacey for HelpingHandsMonkeys.org

The species is highly intelligent and with four hands, very dexterous. She could open a padlock with the key, even determine the correct key from several. The only thing missing is ‘group cooperation’. We support Helping Hands through our store. Get the 5-image series here of Lacey the Capuchin and support their

Recently had the privilege of interviewing underwater photographer Stephen Frink in his gallery on Key Largo. My first opportunity to see some of his work in person; not in a magazine. Here’s his response when asked about his favorite animal to photograph. It is an opinion and position he had long before it was fashionable.