Howletts Wild Animal Park Heck's Macaques at Howletts

robmv

robmv

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I've just read in the latest IZES newsletter that Howletts received a pair of confiscated Heck's Macaques (Macaca hecki) last November from the Schmutzer Primate Centre in Indonesia.

As a primate taxonomy nerd, this is really exciting news to me - has anyone been recently who can confirm whether or not they are on show?
 
Yes the two are on show. I saw them last week through the window of their shed - they chose to remain inside because of the foul weather.

From what I could make out, they look little different to Tonkean Macaques.

3.2 unrelated Moloch Gibbons also arrived in the same shipment.
 
JAF has a cooperative agreement with the Schmutzer Center which it incidentally assisted in setting up. The site is intended to become a center of Indonesian primate conservation. The Heck's Macaque (NW) are indeed different from either Tonkean (Central), Moor (SW) or Black Crested Macaque (NE). On the island of Sulawesi 7 different species exist, the ones I have not yet mentioned are Dumoga Bone (N, incl. the National Park), Booted (SE) and Buton (island form of Buton and Muna offshore from Sulawesi itself). All 7 species are endangered, some like the Buton even critically so.

Schmutzer Center holds the only current breeding group of both Heck's M. hecki and an unrelated group of breeding Tonkean M. tonkeana (the entire European zoo population of ca. 95-100 individuals in Europe is based in France only). The Center also holds 5.7 Moloch gibbons and I suspect of these 3.2 have been exported to Bekesbourne. The Molochs are mega important as they provide new genetic lines for the captive population to breed from. Bekesbourne has 9.11 and Lympne holds 3.2. I hope 1) before long they will start pair formation with captive-bred stock at Bekesbourne and 2) the Schmutzer Center will start to breed Molochs before long too.

Anyhow, we try to find out more when I go to JAF in 2 weeks or so!
 
Hecks at Howletts.

It seems an odd thing just to import a single pair. Were no more available to them? Apart from the danger of losing one, if they do breed then the group will become closely related. Unless others are going to follow this initial pair?

At Port Lympne they also have a single pair of Golden-bellied Mangabey (came from Eastern Europe-Budapest?) again there seems not much chance of establishing a proper group from one pair, but to my knowledge these two haven't even bred at all yet.
 
where did their grey and broad-nosed gentle lemurs come from? Is there much chance of establishing further unrelated pairs from the offspring?
 
I saw the Heck's macaques today. They're in one of that run of fairly old enclosures in the woodland, between the elephants and the main cafe. As such, they're quite hard to see - even if they are out and about. Nonetheless, it is certainly welcome to see such a species in Britain.

Also geladas in the zoo - I'd not heard that they had these. These are near the entrance, and look to be able to use a very large new 'open' paddock, also available to colobus monkeys. Of course, all primates were resolutely remaining indoors - is it just on my visits, or do the Howletts primates that have been blessed with these wonderful, enormous open enclosures (lion-tailed macaques and javan langurs too) seldom actually use them?
 
It's just cover more than anything...monkeys don't live in paddocks. The open enclosures at Port Lympne are really perfect as they are actually situated in the woods.
 
sooty mangabey said:
I saw the Heck's macaques today.
Also geladas in the zoo - I'd not heard that they had these.
Click to expand...

Is it a breeding pair or group of Geladas do you know? Sometimes the primates in the new style open enclosures are very active, other times they're not at all- depends on weather, time of day/year etc. I've sometimes experienced a similar failure to see them active, but the Liontailed macaques were very active the only time I've seen them.
 
I only saw a pair of geladas, but there may have been more. I was still reeling from the image of packs of leopards battling it out with anteaters (see elsewhere on the Howletts thread) to pay too close attention.
 
I was at Howletts today. The Heck's macaques are now in that funny row of cages behind the original gorilla cages - they are raised above path level, next to the ratels.
I was surprised that they are very dark in colour and they have quite long faces. If they were one shade darker they would look rather like uncrested Celebes black apes/crested macaques.
I only saw a pair of geladas with the colobus, but the enclosure is square and has several trees, bushes and bamboos so you can only see part of the grassed area.

Alan
 
i think its great that a new primate species is present in british zoos and it makes a change from the usual celebes crested macaque, lion-tailed macaques etc
 
Did the gorilla at the Schmutzer centre come from Howletts? There is an interesting photo gallery of some of the primates they hold:

Macaque de Heck

I wonder if howletts decide to pair up some of their banded langur subspecies....just before the Indonesian forest fires of the late 90s, they were down to single sex groups of two banded langur subspecies, and made the decision to interbreed from them due to natural hybrid zones occurring in the wild. I was sure they recieved further banded langurs from Indonesia that were rescued from the fires, (along with the grizzled leaf monkeys), but these could possibly be of the nominate race and the only pure group of bandeds at the park with both males and females.
 
johnstoni said:
Did the gorilla at the Schmutzer centre come from Howletts? There is an interesting photo gallery of some of the primates they hold:

Macaque de Heck

I wonder if howletts decide to pair up some of their banded langur subspecies....just before the Indonesian forest fires of the late 90s, they were down to single sex groups of two banded langur subspecies, and made the decision to interbreed from them due to natural hybrid zones occurring in the wild. I was sure they recieved further banded langurs from Indonesia that were rescued from the fires, (along with the grizzled leaf monkeys), but these could possibly be of the nominate race and the only pure group of bandeds at the park with both males and females.
Click to expand...

I remember about 10 years ago Howletts sent 4.0 surplus gorillas to the Schmutzer primate centre at Ragunan, i don't know if they were in exchange for groups of grizzled and banded langurs that came from the Ragunan zoo, but the langurs i know were rescued as opposed to being donated as they were in a terrible state when they arrived in the UK.
 
Howletts Gorilla accomodation

gentle lemur said:
I was at Howletts today.
Alan
Click to expand...

Gentle Lemur- did you notice which Gorilla group was in which enclosure in the 'original'(kitchen garden) area? Last time I went Djanghou's group- the newest-
was in the oldest run of cages and looked very cramped, whereas Bitam's 'gorillarium' was occupied by just his three surviving females(Juju, Mouila, Baby Doll) and his small son- four animals. Have they swapped them around since then?

Also have there been any new Primate enclosures built in the last twelve months or so? the newest I saw was for the Liontailed macaques at Howletts.
 
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Hi Pertinax, I should have answered this question with my first post, because I know you've asked it before.
Yes, they have moved the gorillas around as you suggested. Djanghou's group are in Kibam's old enclosure (the far one in the walled garden for anyone who knows Howletts) - his females are Kwimba, Sanki, Kimba II, Tamidoll & Kidiki with infant Masindi and I think 2 more who haven't got their names on the boards yet (I didn't make notes, I just took a photo of the boards ;))
The old females are in the small house with the divisions between the runs, with a juvenile as you describe, but there were no name boards for them or for Kouillou's group in the adjoining enclosure - I didn't see any of the keepers to speak to, but I'm sure I'm right on this one. I don't know if they ever run the old ladies with any of the group.
The only new enclosure is the one sooty mangabey has mentioned here already. The cage nest to the entrance, which used to be for black and white ruffed lemurs, before they moved them into the walk-through, is now for black and white colobus and there is a new one for geladas across the path from the Pallas' cats (which I actually saw for the first time - they have 2 kittens). The square field in between these 2 enclosures has been hotwired and planted up as an open area for both of them. It's quite a big area, but there are about a dozen colobus and they are making a mess of some of the planting, unfortunately it doesn't have big woodland trees like the colobus & de Brazza's enclosure at Port Lympne.

Alan
 
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