WACO, Texas -- 2015 is the Year of the Gibbon and Cameron Park Zoo is celebrating in a very special way.
On Wednesday, zoo officials announced the birth of a baby girl to Spike and Gracie, the zoo's White-handed gibbon pair. Spike and Grace are long-term residents of Cameron Park Zoo and this is their second offspring. The first, Mel, was born September 27, 2000 and now lives at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas.
This new baby, a female was born Saturday, June 13th. Baby and parents have remained in the gibbon night house over the past few weeks in order to allow time for bonding. Zoo officials allowed the new family to spend time outside on Gibbon Island. Baby and parents enjoyed the outing and they should be out on the island with access to their night house in case they want to go inside to cool off throughout the summer.
White-handed gibbons are mostly monogamous, living in groups of 2 to 6 members. Females usually give birth to only one offspring about every 3.5 years. The gestation is 7 months and the babies are weaned at about 20 months. The average lifespan is 30 years in the wild and up to 44 years in captivity. White-handed gibbons are distributed throughout the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia and are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN). The Year of the Gibbon was initiated by IUCN, Species Survival Commission (SSC), Primate Specialist Group (PSG) and Section on Small Apes (SSA), as an opportunity to gather together in order to take necessary and tangible steps toward gibbon conservation. The plight of the small apes has often been overshadowed by the great apes, despite being considered the most threatened primate family. Conservationists, zoologists, scientists, governments, decision makers, companies and the general public are welcome to join us in an attempt to move this amazing ape out of the shadows and into the limelight. To learn more: http://www.gibbons.asia/year-of-the-gibbon/.
This information was provided directly from a press release from the Cameron Park Zoo.
