Heck's Macaques at Howletts » Howletts Wild Animal Park

Heck's Macaques at Howletts
29-04-2008

I've just read in the latest IZES newsletter that Howletts received a pair of confiscated Heck's Macaques (Macaca hecki) last November from the Schmutzer Primate Centre in Indonesia.

As a primate taxonomy nerd, this is really exciting news to me - has anyone been recently who can confirm whether or not they are on show?

29-04-2008

You beat me to it rob, got my copy today.

29-04-2008

Yes the two are on show. I saw them last week through the window of their shed - they chose to remain inside because of the foul weather.

From what I could make out, they look little different to Tonkean Macaques.

3.2 unrelated Moloch Gibbons also arrived in the same shipment.

29-04-2008

Any Kloss's gibbons planned for howletts?

They seem a good species to be exhibited here...

29-04-2008

JAF has a cooperative agreement with the Schmutzer Center which it incidentally assisted in setting up. The site is intended to become a center of Indonesian primate conservation. The Heck's Macaque (NW) are indeed different from either Tonkean (Central), Moor (SW) or Black Crested Macaque (NE). On the island of Sulawesi 7 different species exist, the ones I have not yet mentioned are Dumoga Bone (N, incl. the National Park), Booted (SE) and Buton (island form of Buton and Muna offshore from Sulawesi itself). All 7 species are endangered, some like the Buton even critically so.

Schmutzer Center holds the only current breeding group of both Heck's M. hecki and an unrelated group of breeding Tonkean M. tonkeana (the entire European zoo population of ca. 95-100 individuals in Europe is based in France only). The Center also holds 5.7 Moloch gibbons and I suspect of these 3.2 have been exported to Bekesbourne. The Molochs are mega important as they provide new genetic lines for the captive population to breed from. Bekesbourne has 9.11 and Lympne holds 3.2. I hope 1) before long they will start pair formation with captive-bred stock at Bekesbourne and 2) the Schmutzer Center will start to breed Molochs before long too.

Anyhow, we try to find out more when I go to JAF in 2 weeks or so!

Hecks at Howletts.
01-05-2008

It seems an odd thing just to import a single pair. Were no more available to them? Apart from the danger of losing one, if they do breed then the group will become closely related. Unless others are going to follow this initial pair?

At Port Lympne they also have a single pair of Golden-bellied Mangabey (came from Eastern Europe-Budapest?) again there seems not much chance of establishing a proper group from one pair, but to my knowledge these two haven't even bred at all yet.

02-05-2008

where did their grey and broad-nosed gentle lemurs come from? Is there much chance of establishing further unrelated pairs from the offspring?

26-05-2008

I saw the Heck's macaques today. They're in one of that run of fairly old enclosures in the woodland, between the elephants and the main cafe. As such, they're quite hard to see - even if they are out and about. Nonetheless, it is certainly welcome to see such a species in Britain.

Also geladas in the zoo - I'd not heard that they had these. These are near the entrance, and look to be able to use a very large new 'open' paddock, also available to colobus monkeys. Of course, all primates were resolutely remaining indoors - is it just on my visits, or do the Howletts primates that have been blessed with these wonderful, enormous open enclosures (lion-tailed macaques and javan langurs too) seldom actually use them?

26-05-2008

It's just cover more than anything...monkeys don't live in paddocks. The open enclosures at Port Lympne are really perfect as they are actually situated in the woods.

26-05-2008

Is it a breeding pair or group of Geladas do you know? Sometimes the primates in the new style open enclosures are very active, other times they're not at all- depends on weather, time of day/year etc. I've sometimes experienced a similar failure to see them active, but the Liontailed macaques were very active the only time I've seen them.

27-05-2008

I only saw a pair of geladas, but there may have been more. I was still reeling from the image of packs of leopards battling it out with anteaters (see elsewhere on the Howletts thread) to pay too close attention.

16-08-2008

I was at Howletts today. The Heck's macaques are now in that funny row of cages behind the original gorilla cages - they are raised above path level, next to the ratels.
I was surprised that they are very dark in colour and they have quite long faces. If they were one shade darker they would look rather like uncrested Celebes black apes/crested macaques.
I only saw a pair of geladas with the colobus, but the enclosure is square and has several trees, bushes and bamboos so you can only see part of the grassed area.

Alan

__________________
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16-08-2008

i think its great that a new primate species is present in british zoos and it makes a change from the usual celebes crested macaque, lion-tailed macaques etc

16-08-2008

may i ask what the IZES is? sounds great news for howletts

16-08-2008

Read this thread James it should give u an idea.
http://www.zoobeat.com/32/hi-new-mem...-england-7408/