Port Lympne Wild Animal Park Bustah the chimpanzee and the old chimp group

J

Jose

Well-Known Member
Hello everyone , i am new to the zoo chat forums

I have a question that i hope one of you could perhaps answer.

I Once visited Port lympne zoo in kent sometime in the early 90s, i remember they had a small group of chimpanzees in what is now an enclosure for bachelor male Gorillas. There was one particularly active male called Bustah who i presume was the dominant male of the group. Sometime after i returned to Mexico i heard in the national news here , that the same chimpanzee i mentioned had torn a childs arm off in a english zoo. Does anyone know what happened to Bustah and the old chimpanzees of Port lympne _
 
Jose said:
There was one particularly active male called Bustah who i presume was the dominant male of the group. Sometime after i returned to Mexico i heard in the national news here , that the same chimpanzee i mentioned had torn a childs arm off in a english zoo. Does anyone know what happened to Bustah and the old chimpanzees of Port lympne _
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Bustah's group comprised two females, Alexa & Bixa, and Bustah's two male offspring; Jestah(mother Jenni) and Buxom(mother Alexa)

I can't remember where they came frrom originally but until 1982 they lived at Howletts, in the partitioned area of the gorilla enclosure where Kouillou's group live.

The accident with the child happened at Port Lympne.

I think they were later exported, possibly to Spain. Anyone?
 
The group ( as far as I know all of them ) went from Port Lympne to the newly opened Chimp enclosure at Windsor Safari Park . When Windsor closed they went to Monkeyworld ( again as far as I know all of them ) . Males Justa and Buxom are in Butch's batchelor group at Monkeyworld . Bixa is in Paddy's group . ( Just checked this on the Monkeyworld website ) . No sign of Alexa or Bustah , they do have a Busta but he appears to be a different one .
 
Im pretty sure they went to Monkey World , Jim Cronin used to work at Howletts and i think there was a good connection between him and John Aspinall.
 
Bele said:
Males Justa and Buxom are in Butch's batchelor group at Monkeyworld . Bixa is in Paddy's group . ( Just checked this on the Monkeyworld website ) . No sign of Alexa or Bustah , they do have a Busta but he appears to be a different one .
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I looked too. It seems Bixa was born at Port Lympne, and a couple more babies (Arfur & Jess)were born in April '93 within two days of each other at Windsor SP so presumably Monkeyworld received 7 chimps in total from there.

I have an old postcard of 'Bustah' at Howletts and the website photo of his grown up son 'Buxom' shows they were extremely alike, though the other son Jestah doesn't look so much like them .

Maybe I should revisit Monkeyworld- 15 adult male chimpanzees together might be a sight worth seeing.:)
 
Arfur,Jess,Bixa,Justa and Buxom are all at Monkey World a i saw them in August last year. So Bustahs offspring live on! making him a grandfather and perhaps great grandfather.:)
The bachelor group is a fantastic sight to see Pertinax
 
You are right Kiang , I checked last night , Bustah and 2 females did go to South Africa . I have more details of the chimp family which I will post later . Only the 3 youngsters went to Windsor .
 
Bele said:
You are right Kiang , I checked last night , Bustah and 2 females did go to South Africa . I have more details of the chimp family which I will post later . Only the 3 youngsters went to Windsor .
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So we were both right! The adults were exported and the youngsters went to Windsor and then Monkeyworld.
 
Marwell Dalek said:
Yeesh, don't get an empty arm socket from most zoo shops!
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It must have been a pretty horrific scene to witness. Howletts/Port Lympne have had a number of other accidents but mostly involving keepers, not the public. It may also be (partly) why they got rid of the Chimpanzees.
 
What were the other reasons for them to get rid of them?
 
ashley-h said:
What were the other reasons for them to get rid of them?
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I don't know, but possibly either they wanted the cagespace for male Gorillas, or just didn't want to keep chimps anymore. I suspect the accident had a lot to do with it though...
 
I would guess so. The mojority of the public probably wouldn't even notice that they got replaced by Gorillas anyway ;)
 
Bustah and his family

I have been digging out information on the Howletts / Port Lympne chimp group and have found the following .

John Aspinall's first chimp was a female Yonkus which he purchased in New York in 1959 from the proceeds of a win on the horses .

Male Bustah arrived as a baby in 1962 .

Yonkus gave birth to male Bongo in 1970 , he was mother-reared and went to Longleat in 1980 .

Yonkus then gave birth to female Binkus in 1974 , she was hand-reared as Yonkus had no milk . Binkus went to Longleat in 1976 .

Yonkus had another female baby in 1975 but died under anaesthetic whilst the baby - Yonkus II - was being being removed for hand-rearing as there was no milk again . Yonkus II moved on to Zootopia in 1980 and died at Causeway in 1986 .

Femal Jenni arrived as a baby in 1966 . She gave birth to male Jestah in 1981 and died in 1984 .

Female Alexa was born in Jersey in 1967 and arrived on loan in 1968 . She gave birth to female Bixa in 1977 and male Buxom in 1982 .

The group moved from Howletts to Port Lympne in 1982 . After the death of Jenni in 1984 , Alexa was the only adult female . The 3 growing youngsters Jestah , Bixa and Buxom were giving Alexa a hard time and she had 2 failed pregnancies in 1986 so the three young moved to the new enclosure at Windsor in 1987 .

Bustah was left on his own when Alexa died in January 1988 . Bessie , born 1969 , arrived from Kolmarden in July 1988 . Kate arrived from Chester in 1989 but did not stay long before returning to Chester . A further female Mollie , born 1967 , arrived from Kolmarden in 1990 .

I am not aware of any breeding from this final group of three and they were sent to Tygerberg in South Africa around 1994 . I am not sure how soon after the accident the move was made .

I obtained the above information from a 1993 UK Chimp studbook , the annual HELP newsletters of the Aspinall organisation and John Aspinall's 1976 book 'The Best of Friends ' .

Does anyone know what happened to Bongo and Binkus who went to Longleat ?
 
Original Howletts' gorillas.

Fascinating details. I've started another thread on Howletts original Gorillas as I don't have their full history, so if anyone can help?

He had several very early on which died but I don't know how many or their names.
 
A good place to look is the book 'the best of friends' written by John Aspinall in 1976 and is superb!
There was Kulu a young male who died in the 1970's and was 11 i will check out the book see what i can find
 
see its funny, when i went to port lympne in may i awlways said if i was manager i always said that i wold swap the batchular male gorillas at port lympne with the batchular male chimps at monkey world! ;)
 
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