Gremlins Essay, Research Paper

After seeing the video Gremlins: Faces in the forest (1998) and participating in an interview with Dr. Susan Ford, I have realized that there are so many things that we can be taught about our background history just by closely studying these animals. However I was more intrigued by the fact that more and more of these species are disappearing off the face of the earth. After doing some more reading, I have found that steady loss of forests and hunting has made the primates the most imperiled mammal on the planet. Of the more than 200 species of primates, including gorillas, gibbons siamangs, and the orangutans, almost half face extinction, and nearly 20 percent more may soon reach threatened status. Only one species of primates are increasing in number: Humans.

Uncontrolled human population growth is to blame for the fate of the primates. Humans expand into new regions with no thoughts about their impact on the land and animals already living there, primate species tend to live in forests-cut the forests and you take away the habitat of that animal. So when humans cut down vast amounts of forests, the animals have no time to adapt to the new environment therefore become extinct, which was something that Dr. Ford clearly stated during her interview. In Africa lies a third of the remaining rainforests, yet like all the other rain forests already lost forever, the land is being cleared for logging timber, large scale cattle ranching, mining operations, government road building and hydroelectric schemes, military operation, and subsistence agriculture of peasants and landless settlers. Sadder still, in many places the forests are burnt simply to provide charcoal to power industry in the area. And from what we saw in the video, the Marmosets live only in a specific area of the rainforest so if we were to cut down that area, the Marmosets would automatically become extinct.

Another thing that fascinated me during Dr Ford s interview is the vast amount of information that can be obtained from just studying the bones of an animal. For example, using the bones of an animal she is set out to answer questions like what was the behavior of the animal, why animals are built the way they are, what parts of their anatomy are different and why, and also sort out the relationships between the different monkeys. Nevertheless in order to answer these questions she also needs information concerning today s living monkeys. Information such as – monkeys that move on four legs tend to have less strong legs than monkeys that leap on trees, etc.

Lastly, from the interview I could clearly see that Dr. Ford is very interested in her work and she seemed to know everything there is to know about primentology. She answered our questions with great enthusiasm and professionalism, I found the interview to be very educational in my part, and further more, I thoroughly enjoyed it.