The Secret Life Of The Zoo – Monkey Business

We have been watching a series on the television called The Secret Life Of The Zoo which is really interesting and quite amazing at times. It is about Chester zoo in the UK and they keep lots of animals and try to breed them trying to conserve different species which are becoming extinct in the wild.

The zoo keepers become very attached to the animals and care very much about their welfare. When any of the animals die they are very upset and also are made happy by any new births.

Recently, a chimpanzee had a baby and was carrying it around all of the time, which is what usually happens. At one point in the day, the chimps all disappeared into the indoor enclosure and the male chimps began screaming and shouting and making lots of noise. The keepers became worried, as chimps can get violent at times and babies, being so small, can get hurt or even killed.

As the keepers watched, another female chimp came out of the enclosure carrying the other females' baby. This was very alarming! They didn't know what was going on and assumed that the female had kidnapped the baby. The strongest male chimp followed them around and the baby's mother stayed close by. This went on for an hour and then they all disappeared back into the indoor enclosure where another set of screaming and shouting went on. Shortly afterwards, the real mother appeared carrying her baby and all was well.

Mystified by this, the keepers looked at the CCTV and found that the chimp mother had handed her baby over to the other female to carry. The other female was found out later to be pregnant, the female with the baby had known that and had given the pregnant chimp the baby to practise on as she had not had a baby of her own before!

The oldest zoo keeper remarked that this behaviour has never been witnessed before in his 40 odd years as a zoo keeper.

Isn't that amazing? I am sure the human race could learn a thing or two from animals at times.