Ape Escape

Ape Escape

In the weekend, three Gibbons escaped their enclosure at Orana Park in Christchurch. All the people visiting the zoo had to go into special cages to prevent getting attacked by the small 14kg apes. One of the teenage Gibbons got excited and swam over the moat which is very unusual because Gibbons are not swimmers. The biggest cause of death for Gibbons in zoos is drowning. Two other excited Gibbons decided to follow their friend over the moat. Orana Park has had the enclosure for eight years and has never had this happen before. The small but deadly apes are strong enough to rip you apart, can grow up to 1 metre tall and can jump up to eight metres high. After an hour of chasing monkeys around Orana Park, the Gibbons were finally captured and put back in the enclosure without the use of tranquilizer darts. The male apes didn’t go very far from their enclosure because they didn’t want to leave the females and babies alone. The zoo staff only knew about it when a visitor took a video and some photos of the ingenious Gibbons escaping over the moat. The incident was said to be very serious and Orana Park will investigate into how to prevent this from happening again in the future. A presenter from the Erin Simpson Show was at Orana Park when the Gibbons escaped and posted on Twitter “I’m at Orana Park and an ape has escaped! This is like real life King Kong”. Callum           9.09.13

"I must protect this pole"

Two adventurous Gibbons take over

Two adventurous Gibbons take over