orangutans of jersey zoo » Durrell (Jersey) Zoo

19-10-2007

I hope it's not bad form to reply to my own post

I have found some old scans on my hard drive, and posted 2 in the Gallery. They show Anne at Bristol and a Bornean baby, who was approximately the same age as Oscar. I will need to dig out the original slides to find the name of the baby and the dates. I'm sure I could get better scans of them as well.

Alan

__________________
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

20-10-2007

The Bornean baby was probably 'James' born in 1972 and the only offspring (ever) of their adult pair 'Jack' and 'Jill' who occupied the cage(which used to be Alfred the Gorilla's) in the old Ape House nearest to the zoo entrance.
James was sent later sent to Weybridge- Dudley- Blackpool-finally a zoo in the Canary Islands and died there without having bred any offspring.

At the same time Bristol also had a juvenile pair of Borneans called Abang and Dayang. This young pair were donated by Barbara Harrisson who rescued 'orphan' baby orangutans in Borneo and donated several to European zoos(e.g. Hamburg, Berlin, Edinburgh)

Why she allowed this pair to go to Bristol I don't know as the old House was substandard and they didn't have space for them anyway so they ended up occupying one of the inside cages in the Gorilla House. Abang and Dayang were later(1976) sent to Kanpur, India (which I doubt Barbara Harrisson would have approved of) as only Sumatran Orangs were to be kept in the 'new' house constructed in 1975. The main part of that house is now the Nocturnal House.

20-10-2007

Yes! Thank you. I was going to try to find the slide tonight to check it out.
I do remember Jack & Jill (although I couldn't remember their names) as well as Abang & Dayang, I just got the wrong pair. At that time Bristol had the 2 pairs of Bornean orangs, the pair of Sumatran orangs, a trio of chimps (if I remember rightly) and a breeding trio of gorillas (Samson, Delilah & Caroline). The keepers were obviously very skilled because the accomodation was poor (even the more modern gorilla house).
With hindsight, it's a great pity that the zoo didn't/couldn't house that outstanding collection better and sooner. The Ape House they eventually built (now modified for Keas & bats & nocturnal house) was so poorly designed. It's dreadful that so many beautiful apes have left so few descendents.

Alan

__________________
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

20-10-2007

thank you 4 the info very intersting about the pairs of orangutans looking in to their family tree as we speak keep the gd work up !!!

20-10-2007

The Chimps were male;Buttons, and females; Susan and Elizabeth..

Its strange that Bristol's Apes- all three species, were more successful breeding in the very old house than in the specially built Ape House into which they were moved in 1975.

From then on they had an absolutely ATROCIOUS record of infant deaths - particularly the Gorillas. The four females; Delilah, Diana, Gogal and Susie all bred regularly with Samson (and his son Daniel) and produced about twenty five infants(including stillbirths) between them. Diana alone had ten pregnancies but none survived longer than 2 years. Same for Gogal(6) and Susie(5) and Delilah(5 + more in Belfast) Few of these babies survived more than a year or two. It was a similar story with the Orangutans... only the ones born in the original house grew up.

From this era only two Gorillas survive- a male in Japan (could be dead), and Salome, born in London(samson x Lomie) and now back at Bristol (where she is rearing a male baby.)
Various reasons were put forward at the time but mainly the deaths were simply hushed up. The only other zoo with such a comparably past poor record in the ratio of Gorilla babies born/dying is Barcelona Zoo.

12-07-2008

Any updates of the orangutans ?

14-01-2009

The Durrell WPT web-site reports that 20 year old female Sumatran orang-utan Dana who arrived last year has settled in well with the group . She is pregnant after mating with Dagu with the baby expected in May .

14-01-2009

I hope she stays that way longterm. The last female Julitta(ex Bristol) got along fine with the others to start with, then later became very antisocial and they finally had to isolate her permanently before sending her and her baby to France(Amneville Zoo).

I'm wondering if Orangutan 'groups' that contain unrelated females are setting themselves up for this sort of problem. Paington seem to be experiencing a similar problem at present.

15-01-2009

Very interesting point Pertinax regarding stable orangutan 'groups' being related . Looking at the females in other UK and Irish collections , both Chester's groups Sumatran(sisters) and Bornean ( mother and daughters) , Dudley ( mother and daughter) , Blackpool ( mother and daughters) , Twycross ( mother and daughter ) and Dublin ( sisters and daughters ) are related . The other 2 females at Jersey are also mother and daughter . Does this also apply to some of the larger orangutan groups held in other European collections ?

The groups at Monkey World are an exception though only one female has reared a baby so far . Are most of the females there on contraception , I would have expected more births if not ?

15-01-2009

... and so were Bristol's Sumatrans- Anne/Henrietta/Julitta. I did the same mental resume of the UK groups as you and apart from Monkey World & Paignton, its very interesting the 'groups' all consist of closely related females. (Also at Dublin, though Lola who came from Chester was eventually ostracised by the others and died there). I'm sure Julitta will now live happily (permanently?) with her daughter Putri at Amneville Zoo but would reject other females if they tried to add any.

I think the same applies in some of the larger European groups too where zoos have bred female offspring from an initial pair and then kept them to make larger groups. I know that in some other Primates- e.g Mandrill/Drill that matrilineal lines are VERY important to social cohesion- unrelated females will squabble for dominance and even try to kill infants of unrelated females.

15-01-2009

I don't know the answer about contraception but you are right there have only been very few births(3?) so far. I thought the idea was to breed these Orangutans though to me MonkeyWorld promotes a slightly confused identity, between being a Rescue Centre(chimps and most monkeys) and a conservation and breeding centre (Orangutans & Gibbons?)

15-01-2009

I wonder if their natural instinct to be quite solitary in the wild comes into to play here, as a lot of other species will live quite content with their offspring. So Orangutans will not see their own kin as a treat but treat unrelated females as a directed threat to almost everything from food supply to territory.

15-01-2009

Very confused identity, they say they do not allow their chimps to breed because of the mental state of them however some of the other rescued animals (Orangutan & Gibbons) have come from similar back grounds.

15-01-2009

I think there's something in that. It wouldn't benefit a female to allow other than her own (female) offspring to share or have adjacent territory.

Its my belief similar forces are at work in both social and non-social species but the 'tolerance distance' is much lower in a social species. So a group of e.g. Mandrills is likely to contain several (related) family units within the group. But in captivity enclosures can maybe only accomodate one 'family' unit without fighting between unrelated/less related females. Colchester's Mandrill group is the largest in Uk but stems from 1.2 animals so nearly all the females will be closely related and I'd be surprised to hear of any problems among them as a result. Not sure how the new Chester females are getting on(?) with the older ones- are they all together?(they are in fact all related but they don't know it as the two groups haven't grown up together.)

15-01-2009

QUOTE=taun;131990]Very confused identity, they say they do not allow their chimps to breed because of the mental state of them [/quote]

Interesting. I suspect the real reason is they just don't want more baby Chimps.