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As Chimpanzee Eden boasts the only insect-free primate quarantine facilities in South Africa, we are currently lending a hand to the Johannesburg Zoo and playing host to five monkeys from Rwanda.
The Sanctuary is home for the mandatory 12-week quarantine period to a pair of L'Hoest's monkeys, a pair of Red-tail monkeys and one De Brazza's monkey. The group will then travel to the Johannesburg Zoo where it will be permanently housed.
The monkeys were being looked after by the Mountain Gorilla Project in Rwanda. The NGO had approached Phillip Cronje, now our sanctuary manager but then the Zoo’s primate curator, some years ago to offer the monkeys to the Zoo.
“We thus started working to move them to the Zoo many years ago, but as with all moves of this nature there were numerous hiccups along the way,” says Phillip.
“Eventually, however, the monkeys were able to move to South Africa and because of our close working relationship with the Zoo, we agreed to quarantine them. The State Veterinarian approved, and agreed that if we had to rescue a chimp during this time, we could quarantine them all in the same quarters.”
There are only 80 L’Hoest monkeys in captivity worldwide, and they face extinction in the wild.
(See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Hoest's_Monkey
for more information on L’Hoest’s monkeys,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Brazza's_Monkey for more information on De Brazza’s monkeys and
http://www.theprimata.com/cercopithecus_ascanius.html for more on Red-tail monkeys.)
Can you tell the difference between an ape and a monkey? Apes have no tails, while most species of monkeys do. For more information on the differences between the two, and to take a fun Primate Quiz, visit
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/animals/mammals/apevsmonkey.htm
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