Fireworks in new year holidays

THE SUFFERING OF OTHERS

Human beings do not care about the other beings of this planet, and that’s why they are almost make live in the planet not viable, which can happen in one or two generations. Animals suffer a lot with fireworks. Especially dogs. They live terrible days during the end of the year. And other animals suffer as well, because they do not understand what is happening. For them, it looks like a war, not a celebration.

At Sorocaba Sanctuary, which is located in the countryside, fireworks also hit us and all the wild life was impacted. Chimpanzees are not different. On December 31^st, the night had intense fireworks. We have the bad luck to be a tone kilometer away of the headquarters of a syndicate in Sorocaba that promote the noisiest parties at this time of the year. Fireworks seem to be inside the sanctuary. Chimpanzees are not able to sleep during all night, because they do not know what is happening nor the existing dangers. In the day after the silence is more intense, the fears rise and the priority is to recover the lost sleep.

As always, we transferred Guga, Claudia and Emilio to the electric fence are so they can spend the morning in an opened area. At this time they went straight away to the tunnel in the other side of the area and did not leave, not even to drink their favorite juices. After midday, Guga was the only one who returned to the enclosure, accomplishing his duty of alpha male of taking care of family. Emilio and Claudio leave the tunnel and stood around, and then came back into it. We gave them blankets so they could sleep there.

In the next day they got out quickly. Claudio came back to the main enclosure and was received by Guga with a few laps, as if he was complaining about they had spent the night away. Emilio, as always, took a little longer to come back and did not allow Guga to spend the morning in the area of the fence. When he came back, the group wondered if something had happened and he received several laps of the alpha male and a general inspection all over his body of the smells by all the members of the group.

Chimpanzees have a routine and internal rules in each group. For many people this is not clear, but for us, who know them very well, we know that there is a routine that must be obeyed. And when someone does not respect it, is punished for the extravagance.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian
President, GAP Project International