Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre 2014
- Thread starter OrangePerson
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If the female they mention as a potential surrogate is still mothering a three year old, she may not be ready to take on another infant, as the age gap is remarkably short here. Or has the three year old been removed?
Cincinatti Zoo in the USA have been preparing a baby female gorilla in exactly the same way for surrogate care by an unrelated female. However despite encouraging signs initially, neither female available(both with good previous experience raising infants) actually showed any interest in adopting her and she's been moved to Columbus Zoo to try there.
Cincinatti Zoo in the USA have been preparing a baby female gorilla in exactly the same way for surrogate care by an unrelated female. However despite encouraging signs initially, neither female available(both with good previous experience raising infants) actually showed any interest in adopting her and she's been moved to Columbus Zoo to try there.
If the female they mention as a potential surrogate is still mothering a three year old, she may not be ready to take on another infant, as the age gap is remarkably short here. Or has the three year old been removed?
When Hsiao-Quai took the now three year old Awan from her natural mother and started to raise her (despite the natural mother still being present), she was already raising her own son Jin, who was at the time three, so I'm thinking this might be a natural age for her to want another. Although I've seen a few comments suggesting that as she has been raising babies for 6 years she may need a little break!
Just realised, she had another baby before Jin, who was 4 at his birth, that's 10 years of baby raising!
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Gigit
Well-Known Member
Yes - I've just looked up the dates: Jin was born on 12 November 2009 and Hsiao-quai adopted Awan on 7 May 2012. Her older son, Kai, was born on 15 March 2005. According to the Monkey World website, Jin is in the Nursery and Awan is still with Hsiao-quai in Tuan's "group". While she certainly deserves a break, it would be ideal if she could adopt Bulu Mata and terminate his hand rearing. MW do seem to know what they're doing with hand rearing though.
That's why they want to surrogate him a.s.a.p. From what's been said above it seems this female is happy to take on more than one infant at a time so she may still be the best option to do it. Maybe 'Oshine' could also be a candidate for surrogacy too though presumably she has not had experience with such a small infant, which would make things riskier.
It does seem a lot but what she's evolved to cope with - rearing a child whilst searching far and wide for food and possibly spending periods fairly undernourished is very different from the life with a generous, nutritious food supply with any supplement she could possibly need requiring very little effort to get makes it a somewhat different proposition. Awan spends quite a lot of time off on her own and interacting with others.
With Hsiao-quai they could put them into an adult group too which would be great for him whereas Oshine would very probably want him but they would have to stay in the nursery. A-mei also likes babies and looked after Joly from being very small but not a tiny baby.
Not sure that Hsiao-quai is going to want him, she snatched Awan up immediately.
That is what they experienced at Cincinatti recently with the attempted Gorilla surrogacy. A female which had quickly adopted and bonded with a previous baby didn't do so with this one, as they had expected. Nor did a 2nd female they tried.
2 Woolly monkeys born 
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Lar gibbon Nike who came from Taiwan after being confiscated from the pet trade has died after a short illness. (also Facebook)