A great start for 2014 in the primate world!

I have been so busy, I have neglected my blog but I have decided 2014 would be a little more prolific.  So, to begin with, I browsed through all the news related to primates since the beginning of January and there are already quite a few exciting highlights.

The Cincinnati zoo celebrated the first birthday of Gladys, the baby gorilla raised by surrogates.  It's like Tarzan, but in reverse - human surrogates helped raise a baby primate - not an easy task but definitely worthy.
In this video you can see Gladys and her gorilla friends eating a very special birthday cake and hear about the great conservation work the zoo is doing.

Bonobos are extremely rare and only found in one specific region of the Congo.  Needless to say they are extremely endangered.  Only a handful of zoos in the US have the privilege to exhibit bonobos and  the same Cincinnati zoo introduces to the world a young bonobo female (the 8th bonobo birth in that facility).   See the baby in the video below.

Then… out of nowhere comes the great news that a "chimpanzee mega-culture"has been discovered in the central Uele region of Northern DRC.  A group of thousands of individuals sharing the same "customs" and behaviors. Knowing the chimpanzee populations have been declining drastically over the years, this was totally unexpected.  For more information, read this article in the Huffington Post.

Wounda, a female chimpanzee overcame illness and is released on the island of Tchindzoulou. Watch the story of Wounda now.  So very touching.

What would you do if one of your animals escaped?  Well, a zoo in Japan holds drills every two years to keep its staff on the alert.  See for yourself…

Come back soon for more news on primates.