Monkey world. » Monkey World

Monkey world.
14-06-2007

On pay tv in Australia there is a show about a place in England that takes in chimps and orang utans from circuses and small menagaries. It's called monkey world. Have any of the English forum members been there?

14-06-2007

No I've not been, but I have heard of it. Never seen the show yet though. Possibly because I'm not all that keen on Primates.

15-06-2007

Monkey World is on the South Coast, in Dorset. I've been several times but not recently. It started off as a Chimp Rescue centre, with mainly chimpanzees rescued from beach photographers in Spain. over the years they hav gained a large number of chimps and now have about three large groups. They later added other monkeys and apes which became available- some rescued, some zoo surplus- and as well as the Chimpanzees, they now have (or have had) the following;
Bornean Orangutans, about nine- mostly from a rescue centre in Taiwan.
Siamangs.(surplus zoo pair)
several gibbon species, mostly rescued in Taiwan- includes Lar, White-cheeked(several pairs) etc
Barbary macaque( zoo surplus from Chester- but the last of this group may have died by now)
Stump tailed macaques, originally about 18 old animals- enclosure was financed by laboratory which was 'retiring'them.
Capuchins. Squirrel monkeys. ringtailed & Ruffed lemur. Marmosets.

There may be new species aquired recently but I don't know of any. They have a website but its not been online recently, since the founder, Jim Cronin, died recently. I think his wife will continue to run it. It is a small, privately run operation and the animals are well cared for. The accent is on care rather than breeding but several species(chimps, orangs,siamang, lemurs etc) have produced young.

Worth a visit if you are in the area but it is not a large collection.

15-06-2007

The only reasonably rare species would be Woolly monkey's and some of the gibbon subspecies, allthough the rare ones will probably have moved on to be coupled in other collections...

15-06-2007

I've been. I went about 5 or 6 years ago. Not the best place in the world. My mum loves orangs, and I agree with, but apart from that It was just too monkeyish!!!

15-06-2007

I forgot the Woolly Monkeys, I think they may have come from Apenhuel originally.

Regarding the Gibbons- there are Mueller's (2 pairs?) as well as White-cheeked(several pairs) and Lar. (Siamang was one pair plus offspring but they are zoo surplus, not rescue animals).
They seem to establish pairs from the rescued animals- one White-cheeked came all the way from Pretoria Zoo to make up a pair with a rescued one. And I don't think they pass ANY of their animals on to other collections. I think new spacious Gibbon enclosures were being built to house all the gibbons,(probably about 12-15 animals.)

22-07-2007

Monkey world is brillant everyone should go there who likes orangutans and chimps - vast numbers of this species ! brillant go to their website

Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre

24-07-2007

does anyone else find it tacky and misleading that an "ape rescue centre" (which actually keeps many non-ape primates) is called "monkey world" (when apes are not actually monkeys)?????

24-07-2007

who cares, i mean really. lol
besides, its probably under water by now anyway. poor monkeys, or apes.
poor old england.
i think the centre is doing wonderful work, and to all our UKzoobeaters i hope youre all above the high water mark!

24-07-2007

awwww glyn post something in the australian section. and why should i go live in wallacia come to think of it?

24-07-2007

lol, because you love wallacia
i know, i was kinda suprised to see YOU posting in the UK section. but i just granted your wish and posted something about QLD-brown bears in fact. and yey to our new Sydney member. the convicts are making a comeback
btw, mark, are you out there, lost in zooworld

24-07-2007

mark got upset a while back and went quiet. i think it was something to do with big cats - can't remember.

24-07-2007

big cats or was it giant pandas i cant remember either but we miss you

24-07-2007

As Glyn said, 'Monkey World' do some goodwork in rescuing primates in distress- it all started with photographers beach chimpanzees from Spain.

However, I've always thought its a rather 'naff'(= tacky) place- they are very hot on commercial publicity but need to be in order to raise funds. The original enclosures were adequate but were built in a real hurry (at low cost) for the first chimpanzee groups and so were extremely basic designs. They've improved somewhat over the years as they've gone along. The newer Orangutan enclosure is enormous but still very unnattractive....

I'm afraid I'm probably rather biased by comparisons as I think Apenheul, the dutch 'primate park' is absolutely superb.... And no, Monkey World isn't underwater....

24-07-2007

I never really thought about it, to most people apes and monkeys are the same thing. I lost count of the amount of people at Chester Zoo who used to ask me where the monkeys were. I would go into exraordinary detail to explain how to get to the monkey house from their present location, only to be asked if that was where the way out was. They wanted to find the car park, which at the time was near to the Orang Utans. I never knew why they could not just ask for the car park.

I'm not bothered what Monkey World calls itself.