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  • From: Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>
  • To: monkeywire AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [monkeywire] Chimps on TV Sun. and Tues. nights
  • Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 12:46:12 -0500

The Houston Chronicle
April 13, 2002, Saturday 2 STAR EDITION
HEADLINE: TV Shows put spotlight on chimps

SOURCE: Staff

BYLINE: ANN HODGES, Houston Chronicle TV Critic


* * * "Jane Goodall: Chimps in Crisis," 7 p.m. Sunday on MSNBC. Grade: A-.
Chimps in Crisis begins with Goodall's considerable credentials: "At age 26, she walked into the forest," the narrator reminds, "and now, 40 years later, she's emerged a legend." African forests that chimps call home are "under siege from timber cutting, slash-and-burn agriculture and illegal hunting," she warns. Chimps are disappearing, and nobody knows how many are left - possibly as few as 150,000.



* * * "Keeli and Ivy: Chimps Like Us," 7 p.m. Sunday on Discovery Channel. Grade: A for animal lovers.
Keeli and Ivy: Chimps Like Us is about two apes the Discovery Channel has followed for the past four years. "And after you see their story," narrator Kelsey Grammer says, "you'll never look the same way at our 'next of kin.' "
Sally Boysen, a psychology professor at Ohio State University, heads the OSU Chimpanzee Center, and she's been a surrogate mother and teacher to Keeli and Ivy since they were babies. This is as much Boysen's story as it is the chimps'.
Others have taught chimps how to communicate with sign language and symbols. Boysen's goal is teaching these two to read and possibly write, and, she hopes, to progress from one-word responses to full sentences. Here, they're already reading - and spelling - a few three-letter words. But as Boysen's lessons get harder, her students get restless. They'd rather play than read. Patience is the tool most required to teach chimps, and Boysen is impressively patient.



* * * "Going Ape," 7 p.m. Tuesday, on Animal Planet. Grade: A.
The stars of Going Ape are two foolish humans who go into West Africa's Thai Forest with no food, no water, not even a change of clothes or a can of mosquito repellent. Alastair Fothergill, producer of Discovery's Blue Planet series, and conservationist Saba Douglas-Hamilton plan to live, eat, drink and sleep like chimps in the wild. And with BBC/Animal Planet cameras recording every miserable moment of it, they do. But not for long. They hadn't considered torrid temperatures, torrential downpours, or what chimps consider drinkable and edible. While "our chimp relatives" were swinging through trees, covering 10 miles per day and dining on raw monkey, these two were on foot, fighting their way through a dense jungle teeming with snakes, leopards and things that scream in the night.






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