CHIMP WORLD

Zoo Asks Visitors Not to Stare at Chimps

April 18, 2007 - 5:03pm

ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) - We all know not to feed the animals that when visiting the zoo. Now the Antwerp Zoo has urged visitors to, please, stop staring at the chimpanzees.

A new set of rules was posted outside the chimp enclosure at the city zoo urging visitors, especially regular daily ones, not to form a bond with a particular male chimp named 'Cheetah.' He was raised by humans but is now trying to forge a social bond with the other seven apes at the animal park, a zoo official said Wednesday.

"We ask, we inform our daily visitors and other visitors that one of the monkeys is particularly open for human contact," zoo spokeswoman Ilse Segers told Associated Press Television. "He is raised by humans in a family and therefore we are trying to integrate him, to try to get more social integration with the group."

She said that Cheetah's continued interaction with humans was "delaying the social integration of the animal in the group," and isolating the ape from the others.

A sign posted on the glass enclosure requests onlookers not to stare at the apes. "Look away when an animal seeks to make contact with you, or take a step back," said the sign. "Some individuals are more interested with visitors than their own kind."

Segers said the zoo was not barring visitors from looking at the chimps altogether. "Of course eye contact is not forbidden. We have more than one million visitors a year and of course they are very welcome still to have a look at the animals."

The 164-year old Antwerp Zoo is one of the oldest animal parks in Europe, and attracts around 1.3 million visitors a year.

Orangutans Play Video Games at Ga. Zoo

April 11, 2007 - 4:54pm

By DORIE TURNER
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA (AP) - Four-year-old Bernas isn't the computer wizard his mom is, but he's learning. Just the other day he used his lips and feet to play a game on the touch-screen monitor as his mom, Madu, swung from vines and climbed trees.

The two Sumatran orangutans at Zoo Atlanta are playing computer games while researchers study the cognitive skills of the orange and brown primates.

The best part? Zoo visitors get to watch their every move.

The orangutans use a touch screen built into a tree-like structure that blend in with their zoo habitat. Visitors watch from a video monitor in front of the exhibit.

"That's so cool," Jeri McCarthy told her three daughters as Bernas drew a red, blue and yellow picture on the screen. "He can't get enough!"

Zoo officials hope the exhibit will raise awareness of the rapidly diminishing wild orangutan population, which is on track to completely disappear in the next decade, and potentially provide keys to their survival.

"The more we understand about orangutan's cognitive processes, the more we'll understand about what they need to survive in the wild," said Tara Stoinski, manager of conservation partnerships for the zoo. "It enables us to show the public how smart they are."

In one game, orangutans choose identical photographs or match orangutan sounds with photos of the animals _ correct answers are rewarded with food pellets. Another game lets them draw pictures by moving their hands and other body parts around the screen. Printouts of their masterpieces are on display in the zoo.

The computer games, which volunteers from IBM spent nearly 500 hours developing, test the animals' memory, reasoning and learning, spitting out sheets of data for researchers at the zoo and Atlanta's Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, a partner in the project.

The data will help researchers learn about socializing patterns, such as whether they mimic others or learn behavior from scratch through trial and error, said Elliott Albers with the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience.

Researchers hope the data can point to new conservation strategies to help the 37,000 orangutans living in the wild on the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

"Hopefully we can get the animals to find better sources of food more easily," Albers said.

The National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago are also conducting such orangutan research. Visitors can also watch the animals use computers at the National Zoo, Stoinski said.

Madu, a Sumatran orangutan at Zoo Atlanta, plays with the touch screen monitor built into a tree-like structure in the habitat to blend in with their environment Tuesday, April 11, 2007 in Atlanta. It is a part of a study program at the Zoo and visitors can see the results on a monitor in the viewing area.

Oops the Monkey Still Missing

July 5, 2006 - 3:07pm

Jessica Kershaw, WTOP Radio

ROANOKE, Va. - A monkey "mistake" is still on the loose.

Oops, a 20-pound Japanese macaque, escaped from her cage Sunday morning during a routine cleaning, Mill Mountain Zoo officials say.

Zoo Director Sean Greene cannot confirm how Oops escaped, but says the exhibit was secure.

Zookeepers decided to name the monkey Oops because she came from two monkeys thought to be sterile.

The zoo sits on 500 acres of mountains inside Roanoke City Park, and Greene says the zoo's surroundings concerns him.

"It's like a needle in the haystack trying to find an olive-colored baboon -- not only can she move along the ground, but also up in the trees," Greene tells WTOP.

Oops can survive on wild berries, grass and stay hydrated through standing pools of water, but Greene says he hopes the monkey will rely on the sites and sounds of the zoo that she was born in and has lived in for 11 years.

Greene says if you see Oops, call 911 and the Mill Mountain Zoo Hotline at 540-343-3241. Do not try to capture the monkey, because she could be dangerous, Greene says.

Oops, the missing monkey, is a Japanese macaque, like this monkey. (AP)

ALCOHOLIC MONKEY GOES APE IN NORTHERN INDIAN CITY

2001-07-20 05:17 (New York) New Delhi (dpa) - A monkey with a taste for booze is terrorizing parts of the northern Indian city of Lucknow, reports said on Friday. The simian tippler goes on a biting rampage if it does not get its daily dose of alcohol, the Asian Age newspaper reported. More than a dozen people have been bitten by the ape, which last week ripped off the ear of a seven-year-old boy. Frightened residents of the city's Rajajipuram locality have stopped sending their children to school and people on their way to work move through the area in groups armed with sticks. A local resident said some teenage boys of the locality were responsible for the monkey menace. He said the monkey was a peaceable creature until one day when the boys caught it and forced liquor down its throat. The boys enjoyed its drunken behaviour and it became a routine for them to get the monkey drunk. Soon the boys got bored and stopped providing alcoholic drinks to the monkey but it had become addicted by then and turned violent whenever it failed to get any alcohol. Under India's wildlife laws the monkey cannot be killed. Hindus consider monkeys sacred as incarnations of the ape god Hanuman.

Monkey Runs Amok In Girls' School

A monkey went on the rampage at a girls' school on Wednesday morning. It snatched food from students and held them by their shirts. Finally, police had to be called in.

The monkey invaded Jewish Girls' School on Royd Street during the break. The girls, who were either playing or having their tiffin panicked, resulting in a near stampede, said an officer of Park Street police station.

Some were caught unawares. The monkey ran up to them and snatched their tiffin. When one girl tried to resist, it slapped her. It also held on to the shirt of another girl, who tried to flee.

Park Street police was informed and rushed to the school. It was finally trapped with a bait of bananas and taken to the police station.

Later, the forest department's rescue squad took it to the Salt Lake wildlife rescue hub. "The monkey is doing well. It became aggressive as it was out of its group," said V K Yadav, deputy chief wildlife warden.

Story here.

Return to:

KMCWORLD