Furry Fundraiser: Breakfast with the Gibbons

Snack on a light brunch at the Gibbon Conservation Center.

A SONG AT SUNRISE: If you're a gibbon aficionado, then you know that the rising of the sun each day can send the small apes into a very vocal, heard-for-a-couple-of-miles song of sorts. We only say "of sorts" because it is a song that sounds rather unlike the songs we humans sing, but a song it is indeed: Gibbons hoot and purr and screech and deliver bass-like notes, with some of the animals joining in on the harmonies. Of course, gibbons sing their song at other times of the day, but when one considers how they greet the morning it makes total sense for a fundraiser in their honor to also happen in the earlier part of the day, rather than at night. And that's just what the Gibbon Conservation Center in Saugus will do on Saturday, May 2. It's throwing a Breakfast with the Gibbons fundraiser, and while you don't need to be there at sunrise -- the rural preserve won't even be open to the public yet -- you can join in from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

A LIGHT BRUNCH... will be served, and there shall be a silent auction, all to help out the founded-in-1974 center. Of course the center, which "houses the rarest group of apes in the Western Hemisphere," wasn't always open to the public, so being able to stroll near the white-cheeked gibbons and hoolock gibbons is truly a rare treat. But beyond simply being a treat it is an honor to learn more about the curious, intelligent, and highly active animals known as the smallest of all the apes. Center volunteers can explain why gibbons are such great swingers, sailing from branch to branch with a seemingly cavalier and confident ease, and they can speak about their omnivore diets. Capping off the fundraising breakfast will be a gift delivered to Baby Boo, the center's youngest resident and a recent surprise arrival. (Boo was born in 2014.) 

NEED SOME TAX DAY RELIEF? And a little de-stressing time among our animal brethren? The Gibbon Conservation Center is typically only open for tours on the weekend, but an exception is being made for Wednesday, April 15. It will be open on Tax Day, with a buy-one-get-one deal on admission. "It seems like the least we can do to celebrate the day when even humans howl!," quips a volunteer. That's pretty dang adorable, as adorable as hearing a dozen gibbons singing their hard-to-describe, slightly unearthly gibbon song, a sound that should be on every human's gotta-hear-it bucket list.

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