The Awkward First Meeting of Two Orphaned Apes | Monkey Life Season 18 Episode 6

[00:00:01]Today on Monkey Life Orangutan baby Kimi makes the journey from Spain to Dorset and meets [music] her new companion Cybelle, but isn't sure what to make of him yet.

[00:00:12]>> I don't think they know.

[00:00:15]No, I'm not sure. Is that a bit much?

[00:00:19]>> Concerns for aging chimpanzee Butch after a vet visit means new medication.

[00:00:24]>> Hi handsome.

[00:00:27]Good boy.

[00:00:29]>> And it seems [music] to be doing the trick.

[00:00:31]>> He's been playing with the others. He's been self-grooming with the other big boys. He's smiling at us again, which he hadn't done for ages.

[00:00:38]>> And baby number four for woolly monkey mom Ava.

[00:00:44]>> [music] >> Monkey World in Dorset, buried deep in the English countryside, is the largest sanctuary of its kind on the planet.

[00:01:06]The team led by Dr. Alison Cronin rescue and rehabilitate abused and unwanted primates from all over the world.

[00:01:14]>> You just never know how it's going to work.

[00:01:17]>> [laughter] >> The park provides a home for more than 250 primates from 24 different species.

[00:01:34]At Rio Safari Elche on Spain's Costa Blanca >> Thanks.

[00:01:40]>> Monkey World staff member Donna has spent the last two [music] days getting to know 11-month-old female orangutan Kimi.

[00:01:48]>> Hello.

[00:01:50]>> It's Donna's final day.

[00:01:53]Tomorrow she'll set off with Kimi on the long journey back to Dorset [music] by road and ferry. The young primate is to join the park's orangutan nursery and hopefully become a companion for another [music] recent arrival, Cybu.

[00:02:07]He's now 4 months old.

[00:02:10]And although the 7-month age gap is very evident now, as he gets bigger and stronger, they should have a lot of fun together and learn from each other.

[00:02:20]>> Kiwi's day is very different to what Cybu's is at the moment. Um and I think it's very clear um that there is that age gap between them. Um Cybu is less active. He we see change with him every single day. He gets stronger. His coordination gets better.

[00:02:37]>> [music] >> Um Kiwi is very different, obviously.

[00:02:40]Her daily routine is um progressed along now.

[00:02:44]So, she doesn't need the feeds as regular and she's much more active. Um as you can see, she wants to be on the go all of the time. She wants to play.

[00:02:54]Um [music] and she wants to be exploring.

[00:02:57]And there's only so much we can give her when it comes to that. So, for her to have someone like Cybu, as he gets older, to be able to rough and tumble with and climb with and explore together, that is really what she needs.

[00:03:11]Someone that is able to do that with her.

[00:03:14]>> Rio Safari zoo manager Annabelle will be accompanying Donna on the journey to help Kiwi settle in.

[00:03:21]Annabelle and her team tried their best to help Kiwi and her [music] mom Indah Tessa form a bond, but were unsuccessful.

[00:03:29]Then they attempted to introduce her to Jolie, one of Monkey World's former nursery residents, >> [music] >> who was still feeding her infant Membalai.

[00:03:38]At first, Jolie allowed Kiwi to take some milk, but then she lost interest.

[00:03:44]>> You never know [music] how it's going to go until you just give uh in this case, Jolie, the chance to have the baby and see what she is like.

[00:03:53]Um but we were we were not so sure. The behaviors did not seem motherly.

[00:03:59]Um so so yeah, we we ended up not seeing that as a as a viable solution.

[00:04:07]>> Luckily, a place was found for Kiwi at Monkey World, and she'll soon be on her way. This morning, the final paperwork needs to be completed with the relevant authorities.

[00:04:17]Annabelle heads off to sort it out, leaving Kiwi with Donna.

[00:04:22]It'll be a good test to see if Donna's efforts to win over the baby orangutan have worked.

[00:04:28]>> But probably, when Annabelle returns in a minute, she will want to go straight to Annabelle.

[00:04:34]So the less that Annabelle the less time that Annabelle spends with Kiwi, the better.

[00:04:39]And the more >> [snorts] >> she learns not to depend on her.

[00:04:44]>> Donna's relationship with Kiwi is progressing well when Annabelle returns with news of a problem.

[00:04:50]The authorities won't allow Kiwi to travel unless she's been microchipped, and because she's so young, that hasn't happened yet.

[00:04:59]The insertion is normally carried out during a health check while under anesthetic. So Annabelle and Donna consult with Allison about what to do.

[00:05:08]>> You probably need to just put the microchip in, but personally, if I were you, after this is all done, I would shake my finger at them saying that they compromised the welfare of the animal for no reason.

[00:05:23]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:25]>> The decision is made.

[00:05:27]To ensure a smooth transit through customs, Pilar, the zoo's vet, will insert the microchip straight away with Annabelle holding Kiwi and reassuring her.

[00:05:38]Amazingly, the little orangutan, other than reacting to the prick, makes very little fuss.

[00:05:47]>> I think she's okay.

[00:05:50]>> A quick check to make sure all is working.

[00:05:53]>> Kiwi.

[00:05:54]>> And the team photo for a job well done.

[00:05:57]>> Ah, she's still. Good night.

[00:06:00]>> As evening approaches, time for some emotional goodbyes with some of the staff who've been involved with Kiwi's care.

[00:06:11]>> Oh, yeah, you've had enough. You're okay. [laughter] That's it. That's good.

[00:06:18]Good girl.

[00:06:21]>> Kiwi is put into a travel box so Annabelle can take her back to her house for a final time before tomorrow's early start and the 2-day journey.

[00:06:31]Donna isn't sure how Kiwi will cope with the travel.

[00:06:36]>> We've got a really long drive ahead of us, um, around 36 hours, might be more.

[00:06:42]Um, yeah, so there's I'm feeling very anxious about it and I think Annabelle is the same. Um, also feel, you know, sad for the keepers that here. They have been seeing Kiwi and looking after helping look after her for the last 11 months, so [music] it is really sad to see them get emotional.

[00:07:01]But everybody [music] is really happy that she's bonded very nicely with me and that she's going to have an amazing time at Monkey World and it's not far.

[00:07:08]They can come and see her.

[00:07:09]But yeah, I'm feeling anxious now. The last 3 days have been really good and we've had lots of progress, but now it's not the hardest bit to come, but yeah, >> [music] >> I I just don't know how it's going to go. Hopefully Kiwi will be relaxed in the van.

[00:07:23]>> It could be a challenging 48 hours.

[00:07:33]Back in Dorset, the bachelor chimps are outside in the tunnels [music] waiting to be let into their large outdoor enclosure.

[00:07:41]But before they are, one of them has to be given his daily medication.

[00:07:46]Butch.

[00:07:48]Elderly Butch needs treatment for a heart condition.

[00:07:52]It was discovered when a visit from the vet revealed he's suffering from a pericardial [music] effusion, fluid around the heart.

[00:08:00]Hi, handsome.

[00:08:03]Good boy.

[00:08:05]Well done, mate.

[00:08:08]And this is all.

[00:08:09]Yes.

[00:08:11]>> [snorts] >> Mhm.

[00:08:13]After a few weeks of treatment, there's been a marked improvement in Butch's quality of life.

[00:08:19]We did get to a point with him where he just he was just laid down, wasn't really interacting with anyone, didn't really want to know us, didn't want to have any food, but since we started him on the meds, you know, we've come in and he's been playing with the others, he's been sat grooming with the other big boys, he's smiling at us again, which he hadn't done for ages. So, yeah, he does seem to be in a much better frame of mind since then. So, yeah, fingers crossed, stay old man.

[00:08:45]When the park first opened its doors, it became home to a large number of chimpanzees, mostly rescued from Europe.

[00:08:53]Almost half of the chimps at the park are now more than 30 years old.

[00:08:58]We sadly have an aging population of chimps here at the park. We've got our guys who've been here a long, long time, so there certain individuals that you are always going to stress about, particularly like Beth, Buster, Mickey, Cindy, those really old individuals.

[00:09:10]Butch has definitely fallen into that category. Even before all these issues that have been flagged with his heart, we have noticed him, like, you know, he seemed a bit more in pain than I'd say to some of the others. Like, generally, Beth, Buster, Mickey, and Cindy, their mobility's fine, but with Butch, we noticed him a few years ago dipping on his hips. There's a few fingers that don't quite bend the same way they used to, and yeah, you could just see he just seem not entirely comfortable. So, we have had him on pain relief for quite a while, just helping through that. He Yeah, he he's he's strange that he's a big tough-looking boy, but actually Yeah, physically he is still he's getting quite frail as well. So, he's uh yeah, it's been a worry for a long, long time and now this on top of it is uh just Yeah, making my hair fall out.

[00:09:52]>> But he's thought to be about 42 years of age. He arrived 2 years after the park opened in 1989.

[00:10:01]He was rescued from life as a beach photographer's prop, having been stolen from his family in the wild and suffered anxiety as a result.

[00:10:12]Despite his traumatic start, he flourished at Monkey World and became a strong, but fair leader of the bachelor boys.

[00:10:21]In recent years, he's taken a backseat, but still gets the respect he deserves from the others.

[00:10:30]The role of leader has now been taken on by Paco, who has a totally different way of going about things.

[00:10:38]>> So, Paco in himself as an individual isn't a nasty boy. He's actually quite a nice, well-natured chimp, but unfortunately he's not terribly bright.

[00:10:47]He doesn't really know fully how to be the dominant male. He's not good at appeasing others. He's not good at, you know, grooming and working at his relationships. He's very good at displays and smacking people, and that's pretty much where his leadership ability ends. Basically, everything a dominant male should do, he does the exact opposite.

[00:11:04]>> But despite their differences, the aging chimp population at the park have strong alliances and bonds, and the mix [music] of individuals and characters keeps life interesting for them all.

[00:11:21]After a 1,200 mile journey through Spain and France, Donna and female orangutan Kiwi, along with Rio Safari Elche Zoo manager Annabelle, have arrived at the port in Calais.

[00:11:35]They've made good progress with frequent stops to feed Kiwi and change her nappy.

[00:11:42]Now safely on board the ferry, they can relax a little as the team have been given a private lounge all to themselves.

[00:11:50]Once they've crossed the channel and arrived in Dover, they still have another long drive ahead of them.

[00:11:59]And in Dorset, preparations for their arrival are well underway.

[00:12:04]The team are getting a small playroom ready at the orangutan nursery, not just for Kiwi, but also her potential friend and companion Saybu.

[00:12:13]>> So this is going to be sort of a temper cage for the day before they go to the house.

[00:12:18]Um so it's just making sure that it's a little bit more secure.

[00:12:23]It's a new environment for them, so you know, we want to make it as secure as possible for them so they feel uh happy. So it's just put putting one or two things in to see where we go.

[00:12:35]>> The aim is for the two new orangutan arrivals to spend plenty of time at the nursery.

[00:12:41]They're too small to physically interact with the five orangutans already living here, but they'll be able to see and hear them while getting used to their new home.

[00:12:52]>> It is sort of paramount that whatever hand rearing you do of any primates, let alone any other species, is they can actually see their species. So they don't become that imprinted on humans.

[00:13:05]You can't baby-sit them. You can't mollycoddle them. You've got to be able to get them to be orangs. You know, it's what they are. They're not humans. So this is ideal. We'll have two together, so they'll have their company.

[00:13:19]Um and then we'll do a slow transition to the rest of the group over time when we get the internal uh set up done in the playroom.

[00:13:32]>> With new arrival Kiwi now only 4 hours away from Dorset, everything is ready to welcome her to her new home.

[00:13:42]>> [music] >> Three of the park's five squirrel monkeys have just been given a live lunchtime snack of large crickets to hunt and catch.

[00:13:54]Logan, Lucille, and Lopez are the lucky beneficiaries.

[00:14:00]They recently swapped bedrooms and outside enclosures with the park's two Saki monkeys, [music] Niva and Desmond.

[00:14:07]The change was part of a small monkey swap around with Monkey World's other two squirrel monkeys also moving house.

[00:14:15]>> Kimber and Niva are currently at the end of domestic marmoset house and the three are still in here and that gave us the chance to bring the tamarins into this house as well. So, they were getting a little bit cranky with each other in the marmoset houses, slightly smaller bedrooms. So, having slightly larger bedrooms in a bigger space in here actually has done wonders for them, too, because neither of them are very good sharing food. So, the bigger the rooms, the more we can spread it out, the less likely we're going to get a bit warfare between the elderly ladies.

[00:14:42]>> No one is sure how old the trio of common squirrel monkeys actually are.

[00:14:48]They arrived at the park in 2017.

[00:14:51]Rescued from appalling conditions at a house in Bridgewater, Somerset.

[00:14:55]Their full background remains a mystery.

[00:15:00]Logan is thought to be the oldest and recently he's been showing his age.

[00:15:06]He's currently on a course of antibiotics to prevent infection from an abscess under his eye.

[00:15:12]>> So, Logan actually has a vet day coming up tomorrow. So, we noticed a week or so ago that underneath one of his eyes we started getting a a So, he went on to his antibiotics for that, but it did get a little bit bigger, popped, and it's now gone down almost completely, but a swelling like that normally indicates some kind of dental issue. So, it's important that we get him down and check those teeth out because if there is a nasty one in there, the swelling will just come back, and it will keep coming back. So, we need to have a look and see if we've got anything anything dodgy in that mouth that needs removing.

[00:15:43]>> For the last few days, the team have been training Logan to go into a small travel crate, which has been hung inside one of the bedrooms.

[00:15:51]It'll make it easier, quicker, and less stressful for him to be transported to the park's hospital.

[00:15:57]>> This is a temporary crate, [music] so it's attached to the inside of the mesh, and the handles are on the outside. So, in theory, what we can do is train animals to come into the middle and allow the slides to be shut, and they get a reward for doing that. And that basically means that we don't have to chase anybody around, we don't have to net anybody, which can be very stressful if we need to catch them up. They simply, hopefully, walk into the box, have [music] the slide shut, we can secure the box, and then the whole box can be removed from the mesh and taken up to the vet room.

[00:16:25]>> The team are optimistic tomorrow's medical will resolve Logan's problem [music] and leave him pain-free with a clean bill of health.

[00:16:33]>> [music] >> There's some exciting news at Chippy's woolly monkey house today.

[00:16:42]With the majority of the troop outside enjoying the spring sunshine, three others are having a quiet day indoors.

[00:16:53]12-year-old Ava and her two daughters, Catalina and Zena, have an excellent reason for staying put.

[00:17:00]Overnight, Ava gave birth to her fourth baby.

[00:17:05]>> [sighs] >> She'll be pretty tired, you know, obviously, [music] having a baby does knock you for six, so we need to make sure she's coming in, she's resting, she's eating, [music] getting plenty of fluid. So, yeah, it's really important that we can keep a close eye on her and having her separate with her daughters from the rest of the group will [music] just give us give her a chance to rest a little bit. We've got a lot of strong characters in this group and the males are very important in in looking after the babies, but sometimes they can be a little bit overbearing. So, sometimes the females appreciate a bit [music] of a break from them for the first day or two.

[00:17:37]>> The team aren't 100% sure if the baby is male or female. But initial indications are that it's a girl.

[00:17:46]The baby's dad is Xavi, who's outside with Chippy and the rest of the troop.

[00:17:51]But he would have seen his newborn offspring during the night.

[00:17:55]>> All of them were together during the birth as well. So, they're all very aware of what has happened um and nobody seemed particularly traumatized by that.

[00:18:03]They were we arrived everyone was just being normal doing their normal things wanted to go out get some breakfast. So, yeah, it's not it's not anything new for for anybody other than little Zeena um who's now not the baby anymore. So, yeah, everyone else in this group has sort of experienced um moms um in their in their previous groups.

[00:18:22]>> Ava's two daughters are still very close to their mom.

[00:18:26]4-year-old Catalina saw Ava give birth to sister Zeena, who's now 2 and 1/2.

[00:18:32]>> [sighs] >> But seeing her mom with a tiny infant is a new experience for Zeena.

[00:18:38]>> She's still >> [music] >> very close to mom, still very much the baby. So, even though she's off quite independently playing with the other females in the group and doesn't seek too much reassurance from mom um suddenly her mom being occupied with a with a a new little baby is going to have a bit a little bit of an impact on her. But at the moment she she's taking it quite well [music] compared to some others that we've seen in the past. She's she's not kind of throwing too many tantrums about it.

[00:19:02]She's very [music] intrigued um and yeah and and Ava's not shy and kind of go no, that's enough. You need to to back off a little bit. So, yeah, she's [music] she's doing she's doing well with it so far.

[00:19:12]>> All the signs are good. The infant is suckling and holding on tight to mom.

[00:19:18]It's a chilly day, so Ava, her daughters, and the new baby will be kept inside for now.

[00:19:24]If all remains well, they'll be reunited with the rest of the troop this afternoon.

[00:19:33]Following a long and tiring journey across three countries and taking almost two days, Monkey World's newest arrival has finally made it to the park.

[00:19:44]11-month-old female orangutan Keway is about to start her new life in Dorset.

[00:19:51]She's been accompanied to the UK by Annabelle, her primary carer since the day she was born at Rio Safari Elche in Spain.

[00:19:59]Initially, Keway will be living in one of the cottages on site along with members of the primate care staff who will care for her in shifts 24/7.

[00:20:09]And she'll have company of her own kind.

[00:20:12]>> Aw, how are you guys? And I know welcome back.

[00:20:16]Look. Look at this.

[00:20:18]He's got a tooth. Yeah.

[00:20:20]>> Aw.

[00:20:22]>> Good boy.

[00:20:22]>> [laughter] >> Hi.

[00:20:26]>> 4-month-old Cybu will be Keway's companion during the day once she's settled into her new routine.

[00:20:32]>> And your brother?

[00:20:35]He's your brother.

[00:20:38]He's more like your size.

[00:20:42]>> [laughter] >> No, I'm not sure. Is that about much?

[00:20:46]He's funny looking, isn't he?

[00:20:46]>> How have you traveled?

[00:20:48]>> Good.

[00:20:48]>> Yeah, okay. Good.

[00:20:49]>> For Annabelle, it's a bittersweet moment. In a few days' time, she'll have to say goodbye to the baby [music] who's been such a big part of her life for the past year. And the enormity of the situation isn't [music] lost on Allison.

[00:21:02]>> Right now, my bigger worry, I know that she is a strong character. Annabelle's raised a very strong and confident young lady. Um, my biggest concern right [music] now is actually for Annabelle.

[00:21:19]Um, and making sure that she's okay because it's hard. You get so invested in their lives, especially when they're so needy.

[00:21:27]>> [music] >> Um, and I don't know. I mean, I don't need to speak for Annabelle, but she's given up 11 months of her life dedicated to the care of this little baby, so.

[00:21:43]>> If all the effort she's put in over the last few days in Spain pays off and everyone gets a good night's sleep, Kiwi's new life in Dorset can begin in full tomorrow.

[00:21:58]>> Go to sleep.

[00:22:00]>> [music] >> Next time on Monkey Life.

[00:22:06]It's dental day for squirrel monkey Logan.

[00:22:09]But an all over check reveals another issue.

[00:22:13]>> That's looking more like a hammer toe than anything else, that's it.

[00:22:17]Has that been looked at before, this one?

[00:22:18]>> No, so [music] we noticed that a month or so ago.

[00:22:22]>> And Allison visits a private collection [music] of lemurs soon to be re-homed at the park.

[00:22:29]>> [music] [music]