It's 9pm and 5 gibbons arrive at Kalaweit.
They were all confiscated in the city of Palanka raya, 6 hours by
car from here, and one hour by boat
All these animals coming to Kalaweit, for us it's a real challenge because
we never have an empty cage, the only way to make the
place for these animals is to form couples in fact, and to push further
the limits of knowledge of Kalaweit, Nanto and his
team, to make sure the gibbons accept each other, and so we still have a lot
of work, in the next two or three days to give the best to all these
gibbons, who all at once arrive at Kalaweit, and in addition they are all adult
so we can not put them all together, as we could do with
young gibbons.
The story is the same for each of these 5 gibbons, they were all held
as living toys for years, after the death of their mother killed by
poachers, their entire families have been decimated, and today it has been a
very long day for them, a real calvary, hours and hours of
road, then transit to the forestry department,
today there is a hope of a better life for these animals, and for
Kalaweit as I said earlier it's
a real challenge, because we never have empty cage at Kalaweit, we're still in
tense flow, and the only way to give to these animals a better life,
quality infrastructure, well it's push the boundaries of Kalaweit into
forming new couples, then everywhere where we still had doubts,
between certain affinities between the gibbons, we have no longer the
choice, we must try to make couples to freed cages,
and be able to give these new gibbons a better life ...
In one of the big enclosure just completed at Kalaweit
so we make a new couple, it's Cecile and Ipari, so there is never
certainty when we make a couple, which is certain that both animals
do not know each other, they have simply already heard the voice od each-other, and both
are put together, in a new enclosure,
so each of them enter into a new environment, it's very
important to avoid too strong conflicts, conflicts related to
territoriality, so each one of them arrive in a neutral cage,
it is essential,
Both are waking up in a completely new environment so
they are not at all sure of them, and that's what we are looking for, that the two gibbons
feel vulnerable to avoid that one of them does not become too
aggressive, that he is too confident in himself,
so if we have a male is in a cage A, a female in a cage B, the best for
to form a couple is to bring them together in a cage C.
The couple is a essential step for gibbons because
gibbons are monogamous, they stay united for life, so if they are alone
they have no hope of being released in the wild they would be killed by
families already present in the forest, and could not claim a
territory. When gibbons sing in the morning in duet
they need to be 2 by definition it's a duet, and the territorial message
which is launched to other gibbons during their singing, only makes sense if it's
a duet, so here again as they are still a sleepy because of the
anesthesia, they will look at each other, they will really resume their means
at the end of the day, but it will be too late to mark a dominance, there will be
conflict is certain, it is necessary that the male or the female become
dominant, the gibbons are not equi-dominant so in each couple there is a dominated
and a dominant but it's not automatically the male or the female
so Okkay will watch them for the day and then we will come back
to see them tomorrow morning, to see the situation ... English and American call me often
"The Gibbon Matchmaker"
because it's true that Kalaweit, it's also a huge matrimonial agency
for gibbons.
So Cecile and Ipari just spent their
first night together, at it's going pretty well
Ipari is at the top in the boxes to sleep
Cecile is a little bit lower it's a good clue, chances are
that Ipari is the dominant in the enclosure is what we want, we must
absolutely that there is a dominant and a dominated, because if both
are at the same level, sooner or later, it can happen today
as in a week, there will be a big conflict, which can even lead to death
of one of the two gibbons, just to try to impose themself. In each couple
there is a dominant, it can be the female that can
to be the male, but the hierarchy must be clear and sooner is
better, so the position in the enclosre is one of the clues and there
we can see Ipari is high, and Cecilia is in the middle of the
enclosre, so that's also good to say that she accepts the submission
but she is not too submissive, an over-submissive individual would
subject to too much stress, and that would harm his health, and his well-being
so there must be domination but not too marked, for the moment this
that I see so it is rather a good
new, so there Ipari moves and stay at the top of the enclosure
while Cecile is about two meters lower.
What I also observe is that there is no signs of stress from
Cecile, although she is submissive. A gibbon stressed and not good in his skin
will chew, it looks like that he chews gum, he
do this and more or less quickly, and that's really pretty typical of stress for
the gibbons. An individual who would victim of too much submission and
not well would not stop chewing in direction of the dominant,
that's not the case we feel a submission but Cecile stays when
even well in his skin, and all without external element including element
of food, so the next question is, at feeding time,
the situation remains healthy?
That's just perfect and Ipari is coming to serve first,
normal. it's the dominant, but iPARI doesnt stay in front of the food, he moves away
which allows the female to come and to take the fruits too, so like
that they come to serve alternately it's just perfect.
The scenario that could worry us it is Ipari who begins to feed, and
remains in front of the fruits, monopolizing access to food,
that's not the case at all, dominance is well marked but they
live both in peace in the enclosure, so the rules are installed.
Marriage agency for gibbon ... A new success !
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