"Love sick" macaque on the loose!

Tuesday 27 May 2014

One of Durrell’s female monkeys has been breaking out - determined to be with the macaque she loves!

Several visitors have come across the small female Sulawesi crested black macaque on the loose at the wildlife park over the last few weeks.

Macaques are always led by one dominant male and Durrell’s Rick Jones said they had to split the group up because there were too many batchelors wanting to dominate the females in the troupe. But this female has been determined to get to one of the batchelors and has been getting through the fences between the two enclosures. Once keepers had found a way to stop her, she invented new ways of getting through the barriers.

Rick said: “In the wild, when a young male reaches a certain age, he will either challenge to take over a group, or move on. In captivity, they can’t move on, so we had to make a second enclosure and split our group when a certain male came of age. This is a temporary measure whilst we find a suitable new home in another reputable Wildlife Park.

“We are at present trying to stop this female from periodically escaping, we do not want to have to lock her into an inside area alone.”

He said their escapee is not aggressive, nor is she a danger to visitors.

Durrell have kept the macaques in Jersey since 1963. The pink bottomed and punk haired primates are critically endangered and are still served up as a delicacy and eaten on their native Indonesian Island of Sulawesi.

The group is being moved to a newly designed enclosure in the next few weeks which even has a gym which will hopefully give their escapee enough of a workout that she’ll stay put!