Page Four
1989
The Year in Review
 

who should be invited. Centripetal and centrifugal forces have been threatening to tear apart this peculiar organization since its inception. In June, the primatological world was swept with rumors that monkey fur had been been found to have substantial restorative powers, and before the hot fires of greed could be dampened, over 2,500 simians of various species had received involuntary haircuts. Primate Nooz offered to donate a raincoat to any chilly victims of one of these dastardly hair raids.
      We here in Hellmouth were pleased by two stories in July that told us there is still hope. First, there was the decision of Burger Giant to turn its parking lot at the Manaus franchise back to its original pristine rainforest condition, and second, there was the announcement by Fruit, Inc. that they will henceforth have only native monkeys picking their fruit.
      In August, the docent group from the Hellmouth Municipal Zoo and Exotic Animal Crematorium toured the scarred, eroded, ecologically ravaged and ruined landscape of Madagascar on a search for those pitifully few prosimians who have managed to cling tenaciously to a precarious existence despite the almost complete destruction of their environment, and returned with quite a positive report. The month of September will be forever marked by the disastrous event hat took place at the International Plummeting Competition held at Kualakurun Primate Reserve. Despite the vociferous objections of the tall and lanky Dutch primatologist Piet Mons Apeldoorn, the BLUETONGUE MACAQUES went ahead with their first-ever group plummet that resulted in nineteen of them going to monkey heaven.

(Cont. on page 5)   
      
Well, it was another bad year. The last stand of tropical rainforest in Runnamuck State Park was destroyed in a fire caused by a Teasdale Corp. logging project, approximately 6,253 potential cancer-treating plants went extinct in one small section of Badongo-Gazimbi alone, and the Miss African Primate Pageant was marred by an ugly episode of name calling, but aside from that it has not been much better.
      1989 began with a bang as the backfiring exhausts of the Cross Jujube Great Ape Auto Rally in January disturbed the peace of decent citizens for miles around. The winner was a GIANT PYGMY CHIMPANZEE from Togobogo. The Callitrichidae Family Reunion took place in February at the Rio de Janeiro Holiday Inn, and the generally high tone of the festivities was lowered somewhat by a fight that broke out between a TIGHT-LIPPED MARMOSETand a BLUEBLOODED TAMARIN over which one was the most prolific.
      In March, the fig was rated the #1 all-time most popular fruit in a weeklong poll conducted jointly by the Academie Republique Gabonaise and Sigsbee Junior Night College. April brought welcome news as the plight of the world's smallest habitat became recognized at last when the government of Bali-Bali granted legal protection to Poso-Luwak Primate Park, a beautiful area of unspoiled forest about 1/35th of a hectare and chock full of primates.
      There was a falling out at the annual meeting in May of the Suriname Lumpers and Splitters Society over
 
 
    REPORT FROM THE FIELD
    By Eric Scotmeister Fleiglehaus
Greetings from Ipululu!  You probably don't even know where Ipululu is, but that doesn't matter since I do, and I'm here.  So sit back in your favorite chair, kick off your shoes, grab a Guinness and enjoy, because this is my.....“Report from the Field.”
      
I arrived here last Saturday at the Ipululu Primate Conservation Center deep in the heart of the dark, tree-infested, and nearly impenetrable Ugugwu Forest of Tanzania, and I've been hard at work writing my “Report from the Field” ever since. As usual, getting here was not the simple matter that I had been led to believe it would be. For one thing, I was forced to use my old car again because NO ONE was willing to buy it from me, and for another thing, it broke down again! They don't have too many garages in the Ugugwu Forest, so I had to hire a pair of bullocks to pull me, my car and my suitcases the rest of the way to Ipululu. That took a week. Do you know what it's like to be behind a pair of bullocks for a week? HAVE YOU GOT ANY IDEA OF WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE BEHIND A PAIR OF BULLOCKS FOR A WEEK??
      Anyway, I finally got to Ipululu and introduced myself to Dr. Watanabe Kibombo, who is Professor Emeritas at Antananarivo University and resident director here at the Center. Unfortunately, through NO FAULT OF MINE, it seems I had arrived at a rather bad moment. The Professor had just broken a large ceramic display model of a toilet claw he had been showing to a friend, and its shattered shards lay about the room like confetti. He was naturally quite despondent about it, and even though it was only 6 o'clock, he went right to bed without further conversation. I was left to put the bullocks away by myself, haul my suitcases into the guest hut by myself, and rig my own mosquito net, something I have not often had to do. A packet of stale Jujube crackers and a box of raisinettes took the edge off my hunger, and as it grew steadily darker and darker, I fell asleep listening to the sounds of chirping rubberneck guenons in the trees behind the Center.
      The next day he recovered somewhat and took me out to the forest to see some toilet claw marks. He showed me a tiny scrape which he said had been left by a yellow-bellied galago, and several faint indentations which he identified as characteristic of the lesser Ugugwu potto. Then it was back to camp to inspect his prize collection of toilet claw fossils. That night he grew morose again, one moment ranting about the toilet claw model he had broken, the next sulking moodily. Frankly, he was no fun to be with. He refused to say anything about his theory that the toiet claw is the key to primate evolution, and I was not sorry to be leaving early the next morning in a camp jeep under my normal deadline to post my “Report.”
      That's about it for this issue. I think it boils down to this. If you want to know about toilet claws, Kibombo's your man. But if you want a friend, forget it! Next time, I plan to break in to Monkey Island Prison in South Africa to interview the notorious and evil-looking Commandant Dr. Oudtshoorn Grootegraaf. So until then, I'll just say “So long.”
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