July 29th, 2012. There are a series of islands that are inhabited by primates, with black-handed spider monkeys(on several islands), buff-cheeked gibbons, white-handed gibbons, siamangs, ring-tailed lemurs and white-fronted lemurs in this area. There is a free cruise that occurs approximately every 45 minutes throughout the day and it lasts about 15-20 minutes. There are about 8 islands (one contains a bat house) and the informative driver of the boat gives many details about each of the primates. Without taking the cruise one can only see 3 of the islands in close proximity, and even though I normally am not a big fan of rides at zoos on this cruise the boat pauses long enough on Lake Victoria so that everyone can observe primate behavior before moving onwards. All of the islands are more than adequate for their inhabitants but none of them are anything superb as they feature the usual assortment of a couple of small trees and many ropes and wooden climbing frames. One interesting fact is that the zoo has been plagued by river otters, and while that sounds pretty cool the keepers actually have to put most of the food for the primates in red bins that hang in the trees as the otters have been stealing all of the good stuff and the lemurs, monkeys and gibbons are all too meek to fend off their slippery foes.
