Twycross Zoo Twycross Zoo News 2022

haydn said:
Isn’t Monkey Worlds collection still mostly animals rescued from bad zoos, circuses, private collections, etc.
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Correct; the majority of historical chimpanzee breeding there has, if I recall correctly, been connected to contraceptive failures, with a smattering of intentional breeding for group cohesion.

It's still a great place as regards enclosure quality, don't get me wrong - just not the leading authority in breeding and captive husbandry that Hedgehog claims

jayden said:
Are they really there ???
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Well yes, they've both been at Monkey World for years :p re-read the post I quoted.
 
Some people think that Monkey World is beyond reproach due to their overly flattering TV publicity.
Not saying they don't do good work but they aren't the be all and end all for primates.

God forbid the same people watch The Lion Man. I remember people saying how he loved his big cats. Yeah loved them so much he mistreated them, his girlfriend and staff off camera but cos of the cute furry big pussy cats he was venerated by ignorant people.
 
GaryA said:
Some people think that Monkey World is beyond reproach due to their overly flattering TV publicity.
Not saying they don't do good work but they aren't the be all and end all for primates.

God forbid the same people watch The Lion Man. I remember people saying how he loved his big cats. Yeah loved them so much he mistreated them, his girlfriend and staff off camera but cos of the cute furry big pussy cats he was venerated by ignorant people.
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Wow, what a car crash. Hadn't really come across that one tbh. There's a strange psyche involved in vanity carnivore collecting.

Before Tiger King, there was The Lion Man - what happened to Craig Busch?

Monkeyworld obviously sit far away from that (it's a laudable organisation which just isn't focused on species preservation) but it's certain the media plays a massive role in public perception.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Correct; the majority of historical chimpanzee breeding there has, if I recall correctly, been connected to contraceptive failures, with a smattering of intentional breeding for group cohesion.

It's still a great place as regards enclosure quality, don't get me wrong - just not the leading authority in breeding and captive husbandry that Hedgehog claims
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Exactly, Monkey World do tend to publicise themselves highly (T.V. exposure helps a lot too), and they do have good experience with certain (limited) aspects of Ape husbandry, particularly forming groups from socially-deprived younger Chimps, and rearing/creches etc for handraised baby Orangutans. Nothing with gorillas of course. But worth remembering too that they have only been going for a few decades, while many Zoos in Europe(and UK) have solid experience with Apes going back much further than that. For example, Chester was already keeping multi-male family groups of Chimps as long ago as the 1950-60's, while the first successful integration of a large group of Chimps using adult individuals from several different zoos, occurred at Burgers Zoo in Arnhem, possibly before MonkeyWorld was in existence....
 
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The Hedgehog said:
I wouldn’t recommend that Twycross castrate their Chimps,it’ll have a negative impact on their physical and mental well-being. If Twycross want to use contraception I recommend a birth control tablet or implant. Monkey World use these techniques and their Chimps act relatively naturally.
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What you seen to have missed is that most of Monkey World’s males are castrated so that affects the group dynamics hugely, so they get less of the stuff like the ongoing fighting between Kibali and Jambo and some of the females, and if it happens they can get moved to a different group. Not saying I recommend castrating them, it makes me sad that they won’t get to become the impressive chimps that they could have, but I’ve also seen a lot of magnificent entire male chimps die of heart problems. In Monkey World's circumstances it has allowed them to manage these unnaturally raised, unrelated chimps in big social groups with only one major violent loss.
 
OrangePerson said:
so they get less of the stuff like the ongoing fighting between Kibali and Jambo and some of the females,
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I think if I was Twycross, once the three seperate castrated males are removed from Chimp Eden, I would split Jambo from Kibale and keep him seperate with a few of the most suitable female companions. The rivalry and fighting between the two males will never be resolved otherwise IMO as it seems a longterm issue. Maybe that is the plan? Then bring in new verus females to breed with Kibale and rejuvenate at least one of the groups. It means they would still have to alternate the use of the outside of course.
 
Pertinax said:
Then bring in new verus females to breed with Kibale and rejuvenate at least one of the groups
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I should have added perhaps that I'm also concerned what effect the departure of Sharon Redrobe as CEO will have on future plans for the Chimpanzees- or any of the other Apes. She was a prime mover in moving Twycross forwards, and I don't know how this leaves their situation now. E.g. will the new ape builds still happen?
 
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Pertinax said:
I think if I was Twycross, once the three seperate castrated males are removed from Chimp Eden, I would split Jambo from Kibale and keep him seperate with a few of the most suitable female companions. The rivalry and fighting between the two males will never be resolved otherwise IMO as it seems a longterm issue. Maybe that is the plan? Then bring in new verus females to breed with Kibale and rejuvenate at least one of the groups. It means they would still have to alternate the use of the outside of course.
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The chimps aren’t exactly falling over themselves to go outside so I don’t think it would be a huge loss, now they have adequate indoor accommodation.
 
OrangePerson said:
The chimps aren’t exactly falling over themselves to go outside so I don’t think it would be a huge loss, now they have adequate indoor accommodation.
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That occurred to me also- it would be no big deal for two groups to share the outside as they don't use it very much anyway. I think they may well want to split this current group to prevent any more fighting or having to close the house to visitors.
 
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Had a quick visit this afternoon mostly to get new membership a couple of things of note the l’honest monkeys have moved in to the old chimp enclosure but are also still in the old bonobos enclosure so they would appear to have split the two groups and the small monkeys would appear to be having work done on there enclosure hopefully there was some barriers around the house and all there signage was removed, though we saw none of them I’m hopping there still there and this is just renovation work as for the chimps only saw three in both sides today and they where sleeping
 
We went yesterday. And boy, I've never walked that much in any zoo I've ever been too.
Surely all due to the bad weather, lots of paths were closed (some clearly flooded, others I don't know), so many times had to walk all the way around again.

Last time we went was April 2019, so noticed a whole bunch of new bits. Especially where the Tapir and Flamingos are.
I'm sure that's all new? As I don't remeber that part at all.
But also felt like it was a lot of walking and not really seeing anything at times.

I was very excited to finally see the Crowned Lemurs, as I hadn't seen any before.
Something just fascinates me about their color. And loved looking at them. Especially the more darker one. So pretty!

Both Leopards were very visible during the day, a highlight for us.

And when seeing the Red-Legged Seriema, a mother told her child 'look, it's Kevin from up'... Alright then...

All in all a very nice day out, but we both aren't that much into monkeys and variants, so we did miss out on some, but we got the early bird 10£ ticket, so weren't too fussed on missing out a few bits.
We also only arrived around 12, due to the weather, but did stay until closing.
 
I visited the zoo today and a few things have changed. The De Brazza’s Monkeys have been split up, 3-4 individuals are living where the Howler Monkeys used to live near Gibbon Forest and I also saw 2-3 individuals in the old chimpanzee enclosure next to the Sumatran Tigers. It looks like the zoo is renovating a few of the Primate enclosures because when I went to see the miniature monkeys near the zebras there was a barrier stopping people from viewing them and there were workmen inside the house, same with the old De Brazza’s Monkey and Langur house. I was lucky enough to see the two baby langurs (I’ll add photos to the gallery later)

The Diana Monkeys have also been split up, I saw 1-2 individuals in the old howler monkey enclosure near the Orangutans and the rest of the Diana monkeys still live in the old chimpanzee enclosure near the Tapirs and the old Prairie Dog enclosure. The Howler Monkeys are still at the zoo but have been moved to a few enclosures down from their old home where the 3-4 De Brazza’s Monkeys live now.
 
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Pandaboi said:
The Diana Monkeys have also been split up, I saw 1-2 individuals in the old howler monkey enclosure near the Orangutans and the rest of the Diana monkeys still live in the old chimpanzee enclosure near the Tapirs and the old Prairie Dog enclosure. The Howler Monkeys are still at the zoo but have been moved to a few enclosures down from their old home where the 3-4 De Brazza’s Monkeys live now.
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I presume the splitting of both these groups is to remove the offspring from parents, in the case of the Dianas there were three young males in the group that were bred there, the eldest is already fully mature.
 
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