A sickening image from the UK's worst ever ape accommodation. This was almost all the space the subadult orang pair had. Chessington, 27th June 1972. Scanned from a Kodacolor negative, converted to monochrome because of colour fading.
A sickening image from the UK's worst ever ape accommodation (perhaps). This was almost all the space the subadult orang pair had. Chessington, 27th June 1972. Scanned from a Kodacolor negative, converted to monochrome because of colour fading.
Indeed so. The 'perhaps' was an afterthought in case someone posted a photo of something looking like a parrot cage from a seaside menagerie in 1932.
What I should perhaps have pointed out is that this is the outdoor enclosure. I never saw the indoor night-quarters through the door.
Indoor enclosures were raised off the ground, also similar to Dudley's. Whole House was about half the size(or less) though. Reminds me rather of what you might find in an African or Indonesian Zoo.
Yes the small walk-through indoor house contained the three indoor glass-fronted cages, they were very basic with a shelf I think and bars on the ceilings, there was a small metal public barrier in front of the glass but the public used to regularly "wind up" both the male Gorilla "Kumba" and male Chimp "Sinbad", the Gorilla broke the glass twice as a result.
To be honest, at the height of the season the public were too much for the apes to cope with being unable to escape from them.
The public used to feed the apes terribly at the front, which had a water moat with electric wires on the apes side, and the water was regularly afloat with rubbish and waste food. When it was first built in the sixties it was considered to be a modern exhibit! - how times have changed eh!!
Attached photo of the inside of old Chessington Ape House c mid-70s (photo not taken by me) but given to me. I remember the house well. The sign near the floor reads "Please leave prams and push chairs outside". Far left is male Gorilla "Kumba", the name plates below the glass are the animals names and the species names are in the centre ones, Chimps are in the middle den, Orangs were on the far right end. The outside climbing facilities were very basic originally and they were changed later on but were still not much better.
The outside walls were very high as the zoo were very worried they would get out and this is partly why the climbing facilities were so conservative.
I saw this house demolished in early 1984, when the Gorillas and chimps had been moved to their new facility. The Orangs remained in the empty old house until they were exported. (sorry I can`t get photo to turn!)
The young Orangs; male Tuan and female Njonja were the ONLY Orangs ever to have lived at Chessington.
Tuan was a Bornean Orang, wild-born est 1966 and was bought from a Dutch dealer on 26/4/67. Female Njonja arrived at the same time with Tuan from the same source. Though perhaps not a pure Bornean ?
In fact Njonja was briefly sent to London Zoo on breeding loan between June and December 1984, with no result.
The pair were then sold to dealer R.Ruhe, Belsenkirchen, Germany on 29/9/86, however they were re-sold onto another dealer Bode on 10/10/86 before being sold to Riyadh Zoo in Arabia on 1/12/86, they were still there in 1993. Of all the ape pairs at Chessington in the old house, the Orangs were the closest as a pair, the Chimps were just thrown together and never really got on that well, the Gorillas just grew up together as "friends".
Incidentally the Orang pair were apparently roughly valued at £1,370 the pair? in 1979.
