We have seven yellow baboons at our
zoo. Five of them came form Granby Zoo in Quebec and two of them were
born at our zoo. The baboons provide me with hours of entertainment. They
really are a lot like people, in a weird, hairy sort of way.
Every so often when I arrive at the
cat house in the morning, I walk in to the sound of rocks scrapping
across the concrete. When I look up at the baboon stalls, I can see at
least four of them rubbing rocks along the cement. It's like they
decided that today would be “rock day” and that they'll all spend
half of the day finding rocks and rubbing them against hard surfaces.
One time, on a “rock day,” I dropped a one of my locks on the
ground and one of the younger baboons, Stevie, was able to reach out
an grab it. He played with it as if it were a rock for a couple of
hours before I was able to get it back. I was lucky that he lost
interest in it so quickly, usually you loose things to animals for a
lot longer than that. Perhaps the baboons had decided that “rock
day” was over and Stevie had dropped it go play with something
else. When I retrieved it, the green paint had been scrapped off on
both sides, where Stevie had been rubbing it on the wall. I was happy
to have my lock back and now I'm a lot more careful not to drop
anything in front of the baboons - especially on “rock day.”
Watching the baboons learn is amazing
too. When I give them coconuts, the two eldest males will take their
treats and run up to the small portion of their enclosure that
contains a cement wall. They'll throw the coconuts against the wall
repeatedly until they break the coconuts open. However, Stevie, being
the second youngest, doesn't quiet understand what to do. He'll take
the coconut and run at the wall, but once he gets there he stops. It
seems he doesn't know what to do next. He'll usually throw the
coconut up in the air instead of at the wall. I think this is
fascinating. Stevie knows that he needs to be near the cement wall in
order to break the coconut open but he hasn't learned the next step
yet. I wonder how long it will take him to figure it out.
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| Tuzzi - our youngest hand raised baboon |
One of our baboons, Tuzzi, is hand
raised. As a result he likes to spend a lot of time with his keepers.
When I'm hosing the baboon stalls, Tuzzi hangs out in the stall that
I'm not working in. He usually brings toys with him, such as sticks,
rocks, a length of fire hose or a ball. Sometimes when I'm asking
Tuzzi to move from one stall to the next, he'll throw his toys
through the gate. Often, they land on threshold and I can't close the
gate properly. This became more of a problem when Tuzzi started to
fall in love with the fire hose. He would pull it with him as he ran
into the stall, but he would leave some of it laying in the doorway.
The fire hose was thin enough that I could close the gate safely, but
it hindered my ability to clean the stall properly. I worked with
Tuzzi to teach him to “move his toy.” Now when I tell him to
“move his toy” he picks up the fire hose and removes it from the
door way so I can lock him in safely and clean the stall properly. It
didn't take long for him to learn what to do. It's a very useful
command and Tuzzi gets some delicious grapes as a reward!
Working this primates can be
challenging because of their intelligence. Orangutangs are the
hardest animals to keep captive because they're such good escape
artists. At my zoo, the baboons are the highest order of primate we
keep, besides the humans that wander around. A lot of customers ask
if we'll ever get any gorillas or chimps at our zoo. I say that we
most likely won't, and I explain why I'm happy about that. The baboon
amaze me with their intelligence and sometimes looking at them is
like looking at a child with very sharp teeth. They are smart and I
don't think it's fair to keep highly intelligent animals in
captivity. I'm happy that we only have the baboons because gorillas
and chimps require so much more care, enrichment, and enclosure
stimuli than they usually receive in captivity. I think the same
should apply for elephants and dolphins. Most zoos and aquariums have
good training programs and enrichment to keep intelligent animals
stimulated. However, if these animals were phased out of zoos and
moved to larger sanctuaries I wouldn't be sad about that at all.
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