Bonobos Hortense, Zamba and Kikongo have moved back to Hortense and Zamba's original zoo Planckendael due to Zamba's constant fights with alpha female Jill.
At an age of around 30 years today Balda, a female Black howler monkey died. She was among the first group of this species which arrived 1988, in a time Black howlers were still rare and hard to keep in captivity. During her life at Apenheul Balda gave birth to more then 10 young.
Sad orangutan news; Radja, the oldest orangutan of the group/in the Netherlands, has passed away due to old age at the landmark age of 53. She was one of the original seven orangutans to move into Apenheul's new orang house in 1999.
Northern white-cheeked gibbon born at Apenheul . Have uploaded some pictures of female and young in the Apenheul Primate Park Gallery like this one : http://www.zoochat.com/159/northern-white-cheeked-gibbon-female-baby-461588/
At an age of 21 years Apeneheuls oldest Bolivian squirrelmonkey - a female called Dame - died last night .
The zoo is thinking of moving Jambo and his sons out of the group (and likely to another collection) to form a bachelor group as he has produced enough offspring. Plans are still being worked out for some of his daughters and females to be moved around to other collections too (eg the Gyasi or M'Fugaji to Beekse Bergen rumours). If these plans do happen a new silverback will be brought in.
I don't much like seeing this happen to a breeding male, but I suppose genetically there is not too much option- they did the same at Melbourne a long while ago now, with Motaba and his two sons going to form a male group at Werribee. I guess it would be Jambo and the two oldest sons(aged 8 & 9) but maybe they would remove the two younger ones at the same time rather than have to find yet another fresh home for them later as well.
Where Wimbé goes, Jabari will go. Following Lobo's passing Wimbé has taken to looking after his younger brother. And M'Zungu, though being the only one of Jambo's sons that wouldn't necessarily have to go with them, is the son of Nemsi, who in turn is the daughter of Mandji, whose genes are well represented in the population. So he may well go too.
In that case I would think they would move all four of them out with Jambo, leaving just the females for a new male, who might be rather hostile to one young male.
Yes, and M'Fugaji or Gyasi (and maybe Tayari) will go to SBB, leaving between 7 and 8 gorillas at Apenheul depending on who goes to join Komale and Tuena.
Next week a new female Blue-eyed lemur is expected to arrive from Mulhouse Zoo. With this female Apenheul has again 2 pairs of this rare species.
A great result to get such a rare animal out of Mullhouse Zoo's small harsh primate enclosures. Not to say common primates should be there.
maybe the enclosures in Mulhouse are not good, but they do better that e.g. Apenheul with their blue eyed lemurs and they also have nice groups of guenons. Could it be that housing is not the only factor that is important?
I believe housing, so long as its of at least a reasonable standard, is less important to success with some primates than some other factors of good husbandry; e.g. social grouping; peace and quiet without/non-aggressive neighbours; diet; commitment to breeding the species.
Of course it is, especially for species like lemurs. And who has seen the enclosure for this species in Apenheul knows that is is not very good neither. Unless this lemur is a ground-dwelling species..
