My new adopted chimps

As a Christmas present, my mum adopted two more of Monkey World's chimpanzees for me, Seamus and Kyko who are both in the bachelor group.

I've adopted Seamus previously as he is my absolute favourite chimpanzee. He's Cherri's son though she didn't care for him properly and he had to be hand raised. Seamus born in 1999 and is well known for his naughty personality. Seamus also has a very sweet side, and is a very lovable guy.

Photos of Seamus:







I've never adopted Kyko before, but he's been one of my favourite chimps for a while. He had a terrible start to life being smuggled from the wild for use as a photographer's prop Spain. As part of his act was forced to wear roller skates which crippled his feet. Luckily he can walk just fine now and is a very lovable chimp. He is thought to have been born in 1987. Kyko is such a sweetheart xx

Photos of Kyko:





If you have a look at MW's website, they've used this photo I took of Kyko-
http://www.monkeyworld.org/meet-our-primates/butchs-chimpanzees.htm

Help Migrate a Laboratory Chimpanzee to Sanctuary in Florida!!

'Please help my fellow chimps in America!' Galatea

I have just set up a fundraising page for Save the Chimps: http://www.firstgiving.com/freedomforlabchimps

This will be an ongoing fundraiser to help cover the costs of transporting one of the chimps to Florida. There are still many chimps living in the New Mexico that have yet to make the journey to permanent sanctuary on islands in Florida. The cost to sponsor one chimp's migration is $2500 which is the target I hope to achieve. These chimpanzees have suffered so much for our benefit and they are so deserving of a wonderful future at the sanctuary. Please donate to help these beautiful apes xx

 For more information about the 'Great Chimpanzee Migration' please visit https://www.savethechimps.org/the-great-chimp-migration

I have also set up an account of RedBubble and will be selling artwork of Monarto Zoo's chimpanzees to raise funds. The zoo has kindly allowed me to give most of the money raised to Save the Chimps Inc, the rest will be donated to Monarto Zoo's primate section.
http://www.redbubble.com/people/pangorillapongo


Clin, an ex-lab chimp, now living at Monkey World

Merry Christmas!

Gombe

Happy Christmas everyone! Please think of all the apes and other animals who can benefit from your generosity during the festive season. I hope the new lady chimps at Monarto Zoo enjoy the warm weather in their first Australian Christmas. xx

 I think a great idea for a Christmas present is an ape 'adoption', which are offered by many sanctuaries. I made an adoption donation for Christmas to Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre. This is my beautiful new adoptee, Cherri-


Cherri

She's had a bit of a rough life. Cherri was born in the wild and probably saw her mother killed. She was then shipped to Spain where she was used as a photographer's prop. She arrived at Monkey World at less than two years old and had already suffered a broken jaw from the terrible treatment she recieved. Nowadays, Cherri is a respected dominant female in a large community. She's had two infants who she sadly didn't know how to look after properly, Pip, who sadly passed away at the age of only 7, and Seamus.

Visit http://www.monkeyworld.org/ if you are interested in adopting one of their chimps!

Thank You!!

I would like to say a big thank you to those who sponsored me and donated to Ape Action Africa. I surpassed my goal, and your donations will have been a big help to the sanctuary at Mefou National Park. I intend to start a long term fundraising page in the near future.

Anguka, during her brief stay at Adelaide Zoo, she now lives in Portugal


Also, thank you so much to those who voted for the Center for Great Apes to receive a 50,000 grant. Unfortunatley, they didn't get it in November, but you can still vote to secure them the huge donation for December.
Here is the link: http://www.refresheverything.com/centerforgreatapes
Please vote every day in December and encourage your friends to do the same!!! If we all work together we can make a big difference to the lives of great apes!!


Galatea reading a magazine

Visit to See the Chimpanzees

I went to Monarto Zoo yesterday with my mother and true to form, spent the whole time at the chimpanzee enclosure.


Galatea
When we got there, all the chimps were in the playroom. Boyd was using the feeding puzzle, Tsotsi was grooming Soona, Sandali and Gombe were relaxing on one side of the room, Zwala and Zombi were on the other side, and Galatea was snoozing on one of the platforms in the middle. Sandali had many nasty wounds as a result of all the changes that had been happening in the group. As the lowest ranking male, he'd clearly been copping it. Tsotsi was walking strangely on one hand, and it turned out that he had a small wound on one of his knuckles. Soona had some injuries, but I think they were mostly the same ones she had two weeks ago. When I finally saw Zombi properly, I noticed that unlike when I last saw her, both her eyes were fully open.
Zombi and Zwala spent most of the time I was there grooming each other behind a large branch so I didn't really see them very much.

Boyd and Tsotsi groomed each other a lot as usual, but they were sometimes joined by Soona or Sandali or both of them. At one point Sandali was watching the two of them grooming and kept standing up as if he was deciding whether or not to join them. He looked quite nervous but eventually joined them and enthusiastically groomed Tsotsi.


Soona, Tsotsi and Boyd in the grooming group, Sandali is part of the group too, lying behind them (you can just see his arm)
Sandali looked very sorry for himself, and was limping from a large cut on his foot. Twice Galatea came over to him to groom his sore foor, which was really nice. Later, Soona spent quite a while grooming Sandali as well.



Galatea grooming Sandali's wound on his foot


Soona grooming Sandali
When the chimps (except for Soona) went outside for their treats during the keeper talk Gombe was in 'look-how-tough-I-am' mode. Almost whole time he was outside he had his hair bristled and he swaggered and strutted around. He got hold of a ball that someone had taken out from the playroom and after a bit of swaying in two legs and hooting he threw it at the school children who were listening to the keeper talk. Gombe then started intimidating Sandali, displaying at him at at one point jumping on him and giving him a smack. Sandali screamed and ran to Tsotsi and Boyd who were getting all excited by the whole thing. Not surprisingly, very soon it was just the males outside as the ladies had gone back in presumably for some peace! Gombe displayed at Sandali a couple more times, but not really getting violent, before finding another ball to throw at the people watching. he then went inside where he lay on his back, feet in the air, looking very pleased with himself!


Sandali acts submissively to Gombe
Later, something happening in the keeper area caught the chimps' attention and all the boys and Soona bristled up their hair and charged over. I found it interesting that Soona was the only female to go stomping over with the boys, while the others just looked over with mild interest. Soona seems to get on very well with the males, she seems to spend more time with them than the others.
Just before we were leaving, Galatea and Gombe both went outside. After wandering around on their own for a little while they groomed each other. It was nice to see because Galatea had spent most of the time I was there keeping herself to herself.


Gombe and the first ball

Chimpanzee Girls!! (and other bits)

 Soona being groomed by Zwala

First off, I would like to encourage everyone to vote every day in November to help get a large grant for the Center for Great Apes. They do such amazing work for captive chimpanzees and orangutans and this could really make a big difference to the male orangutans who need new enclosures as they grow up!


Much has been happening in Monarto Zoo's growing chimpanzee group-
The four female chimps from the Netherlands arrived in Adelaide in early October and after spending their quarantine period at Adelaide Zoo, they recently moved in to Monarto Zoo's chimp house. On Saturday they met the males and when I visited them all for they first time yesterday all eight were living together.

  The chimps had access to two areas away from public viewing, so quite a bit of the time most of them were out the back where I couldn't see them, which is fair enough- they've had a lot going on recently! When I first got there, the chimps were all let into the main playroom so I was able to see all of them, it was quite strange seeing so many chimps as I was used to just the four males!


Zombi

I was able to tell the girls apart pretty quickly, Zombi, the oldest, is very large and masculine looking, Soona has large floppy ears, long hair and a bit of a belly, Zwala is small, with a dark, thin face, Galatea is almost as small as Zwala, with a pale chin and is very dainty.

Most of the time it was just Zwala and Zombi in the playroom, Galatea came in occasionally, and Soona came in even less often as she was busy spending time with the boys. Later in the day when the boys came back in to the playroom, Soona was right behind them and showed a lot of interest in Tsotsi, but gave him a bit of a slap at one point. When Tsotsi and Gombe were displaying, Soona didn't move out of the way straight away and tried to hold her own. At one point she displayed at Tsotsi a little bit!


Soona

Galatea made an impressive nest in the corner of the playroom floor with a couple of hessian sacks for extra comfort. Seeing this, Zombi came over and started making her own nest next to it. She then reached over and casually stole one of Galatea's sacks, and when Galatea walked off to fetch herself another one to replace it Zombi helped herself to Galatea's whole nest! Luckily for Galatea, she appears very good at nest construction and made in even bigger one filled with blankets very quickly. Galatea's ex-nest must not have been quite good enough for Zombi as she ended up moving a load of woodwool up next to Zwala, who had built her nest on top of the platform, and making a new one.


Galatea

When I did see Sandali, he was in the thick of things, at one point huddled up around a feeding toy with Galatea and Zombi. It was nice to see because Sandali does seem to spend a lot of his time alone. I hardly saw Boyd at all, but I could just see him in the off exhibit area grooming with Tsotsi. Tsotsi and Gombe came in a bit more often, and both of them displayed a bit. Gombe's display largely consisted of him swaggering around on two legs in an impressive manner.


 Sandali

The females appear a lot more agile than the males, Zwala in particular seems to be quite the gymnast. She spent much of the afternoon having a snooze in her nest, but took an interest to the magazines that had food hidden inside. Zwala spent a long time leafing through the magazine, and then took it with her when she built a new nest- perhaps for reading in bed!


Zwala and her magazine

I had a lovely time watching the new girls, and of course the lovely boys. I should be going to visit them again next week which I am greatly looking forward to.

Happy Boyd-day

Boyd with his most constant companion, Tsotsi

Today, the wonderful chimpanzee Boyd is turning 32 years old! He's been living at Monarto Zoo since August 2009 and is a really great chimp. He's a lot more mature and experienced than the other lads and spends a lot of time grooming or being groomed by Tsotsi.



To celebrate Boyd's birthday I became a member of 'Save the Chimps' in order to help other chimpanzees who have not had as pleasant lives as Boyd and the others. In the future I'm going to make donations to celebrate the birthdays of all the Monarto chimps. Please take a look at their website to find out more about the amazing work they do. http://www.savethechimps.org/

I was going to visit the chimps today as it's Boyd's birthday, but I'm saving my bus ticket money so I can visit more times once the lady chimps are at the zoo early next month. I think four new girlfriends is a pretty good birthday present for Boyd to be getting!

Great Apes Need Their Mothers!

Hsiao-quai with her beloved infant Jin

Great apes have long childhoods and are dependent on their mothers for years. The bond is so strong that their have been cases of the youngsters giving up and dying after losing their mothers. Knowing this, how tragic it is that infant chimpanzees and orangutans are taken from their mothers for no reason other than so they can be raised to entertain us. The treatment of these apes being trained for television, movies or shows can be very brutal and when they become too large and dangerous they are discarded. If they are lucky they may end up at a caring sanctuary, but may find it difficult to adjust to living with their own kind after so long.
 Please write to companies who exploit great apes in this way, especially in a time when computers or animatronics can be used instead, this use of apes is not acceptable.
Look at the Center for Great Apes website for more information:
http://www.centerforgreatapes.org/apes-in-entertainment.aspx


Trudy
When she was an infant, she was whipped and kicked by her circus trainer owner


Sule resting on his mum Sacha's back, luckily he will be growing up with his family, as all chimps should do


Carli, a former television star. He knew very little of how to behave like a chimp when he was rescued but is now a well loved member of a group of chimp boys

Fundraising for Ape Action Africa

In upport of Ape Action Africa's work with primates including chimpanzees and gorillas in Cameroon I will be fasting from 8pm on Friday the 22nd to 8am on Sunday the 24th of October. I would appreciate it so much if anyone would sponsor me, it would really help to care for the orphaned primates at the sanctuary in Mefou National Park. You can find out more about the amazing work of Ape Action Africa on their website- http://www.apeactionafrica.org/  and even 'adopt' one of their chimps or gorillas to help support their care. (I've adopted the beautiful young gorilla Nona). Here is the link to my fundraising page if you'd like to help me reach my target, or even surpass it! The apes really need our help!
http://www.justgiving.com/pangorilla


Gombe
PLEASE DONATE TO PROVIDE A GOD LIFE FOR PRIMATES ORPHANED DUE TO THE ILLEGAL BUSHMEAT TRADE!!!

Day with Chimp Keepers

Gombe, looking much better than when I last saw him

Yesterday I had a super day helping the primate keepers at Monarto Zoo. Most of the time was with the chimpanzees, but I also helped to clean out the colobus monkeys' bedrooms and also the black rhinos' shelters (while the primate keepers were at a meeting).
 I helped hide the boys' food around the enclosure, it's amazing how big it is in there when you're actually walking around inside the enclosure! I blended up their dinner of soup and bottled it for them and rolled up balls of primate meal which was very messy and quite smelly, but fun as well.


Sandali

The chimpanzees were wonderful, when we got there in the morning Tsotsi and Gombe played tag around the bedrooms with big play faces and laughing audibly. Gombe seemed to be back to his usual self and later played chasing games with Boyd as well. Early in the morning, Tsotsi displayed at Boyd who acted submissively towards him. Later Sandali approached Boyd with his hair bristled and then they kissed and Boyd patted Sandali on the shoulder. Boydie was quite slow when he was walking around, probably results of being middle-aged. He'd had a tooth removed recently. Of all the chimps, only Sandali participated in operant conditioning before going outside, it was interesting to watch as he responded to different hand signals.


Gombe and Boyd

I've got to mention the colobus monkeys here as well. They're such interesting primates to spend time with, the juvenile Kyoda was just the cutest little thing, and his mum Misika was very good as to not grab at me (which I was warned of before entering the monkey house!). It was nice to see the group as they are not on public display so I hadn't seen them since I did work experience at the zoo last year.


Kyoda

On Sunday I helped out at the Australian Orangutan Project stall at the Malaysian Carnival which was really enjoyable and we sold quite a few cuddly orangutans! Tonight is the AOP movie night at Adelaide Zoo which I'll be attending in a few hours. :)
All in all, I'm having a great and ape-filled few days, my experience at the zoo has made me even more determined to help chimpanzees in some way.


Sandali

I'm rather excited

I've just organised with the very lovely keepers at Monarto Zoo to spend the a day assisting the chimpanzee keepers as I wasn't able to go on the primate round when I was there on work experience last year! (That was due to my work experience being on the week that Gombe and Boyd arrived from NZ). I'll be spending the day with the chimp keepers on Tuesday the 14th of September and I cannot wait! I've also been told that Gombe is feeling a lot better. :)
 Up until then I will be quite busy, this weekend I will be helping out at the Free the Bears booth at the Royal Adelaide Show (visit http://www.freethebears.org.au/ to check out the amazing work they do!) and am also going to be working on a large chimpanzee themed work of art for school.


Sandali

I'm planning on doing a fundraiser for Ape Action Africa (formerly CWAF)  later in the year, I'm not entirely sure what it will involve but I would recommend their website to have a look at their work with primates in Cameroon. (http://www.apeactionafrica.org/)


My adopted chimp Hebe at Monkey World, UK

Chimpanzee visit and Upcoming Events

Boyd


I was lucky enough to be invited along to Monarto Zoo with my school's Year 11 Environmental Studies camp on 12th-13th August as the 'chimp expert'. At the chimpanzee enclosure, I talked to the other students about chimps and the many threats facing them. I also talked about the four beautiful chimp boys that are living at the zoo. I enjoyed giving the talk and I was asked lots of questions afterwards about chimpanzees.
 
 Unfortunatley, Gombe was very poorly on the two days I was there, and on the 13th he was displayed at by both Tsotsi and Boyd and had his nest charged through and was attacked by Tsotsi who screamed loudly at him. After the brief attack, Tsots and Boyd joined Gombe for grooming. I was very worried about Gombe, but as I haven't heard anything since then I'm hoping that no news is good news!
 

Gombe feeling unwell
 
You may know that I am a volunteer for the Australian Orangutan Project (AOP). We have some events coming up soon in South Australia in aid of orangutans, and also in aid of chimpanzees at the Jane Goodall Institute's Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre.
There are two movie nights planned with guest speakers.
 
On the 15th of September there will be a screening of 'The Last Trimate' about the great primatologist Birute Galdikas and orangutans. Adelaide Zoo orang keeper Jodie Ellen will be a guest speaker, talking about her experiences in Borneo.
 
On the 22nd of September, there will be a screening of 'Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees' with ZoosSA CEO and JGI Chairman Dr Chris West talking as a guest speaker.
 
Both will take place at the Santos Conservation Centre outside Adelaide Zoo, from 7pm for a 7.30pm start. Prices are $15 for one night and $25 for both. Purchases can be made through contacting Regina (0408377996),
If you would like a flyer for the movie evenings please contact me


Sandali says 'Please help us!'


Kluet

Some Gorilla Pictures

Hi, I haven't posted much gorilla related yet (or bonobos either, I'm not very knowledgeable about bonobos at the moment, I would love to be able to visit and watch some one day) so I'm posting a few gorilla photos because they are such beautiful animals.

Gorillas are under threat of extinction because of deforestation, the bushmeat trade and disease. To find out how you can help please visit the website of Ape Action Africa- http://www.apeactionafrica.org/ or the Gorilla Organization- http://www.gorillas.org/

Luckily for gorillas, they are used less in entertainment than orangutans and chimpanzees because they are so large and highly prized in zoo collections. They are also not used in biomedical laboratories the way chimps are.

Fuzu, a young male who lives at Taronga Zoo, Sydney

Female gorilla Safiri when she was staying at Adelaide Zoo in 2007. She has since moved to Duisburg Zoo, Germany where she's had her first baby

This is Bobby who sadly passed away in late 2008. He was only in his 20s when he died but had much happen to him in his short life, being stolen from the wild, used in the circus before living in several zoos. Bobby lived his last days with three females Zaire, Effie and Mjukuu.

pusung

I'm Fundraising for Orangutans in Memory of Beautiful Pusung!

I'm Fundraising for Orangutans in Memory of Beautiful Pusung!

Gombe- the Teenager

Gombe was born on the 4th of February 1993 at Wellington Zoo and his father is Boyd.

He is the darkest in colour of Monarto Zoo's four male chimps and has a bit of a belly on him. Other distinguishing features include a pink harelip, spiky hair on his head and a prominent beard. The second youngest in the group at the moment, Gombe is quite a handsome guy.

Gombe is a really interesting chimpanzee to watch, he can be a bit of a troublemaker, trying to stir the others up. I haven't seen him displaying for a while now, but when he does it is very impressive- not only does he charge around with his hair on end, he also swings and jumps around a lot (much more so than Tsotsi does when he's displaying) and can be quite noisy.

When the chimps were given mirrors recently, Gombe was intrigued but ended up using his mirror to check out is rude bits from different angles.

Gombe spends a lot of time with Boyd and Tsotsi.