Celebrating International Primate Day 2024

On September 1st, we celebrated a very special day for the primate team… International Primate Day! This is an annual event organised since 2005 by the British-based Animal Defenders International (ADI) and if there is one thing the primate team know how to do… it’s to throw a celebration!

So for this blog, I decided to share those special moments with you as we celebrate the day and give you a little insight on why our fantastic primate keepers love the animals they work with. In order to share those moments with everyone, I asked all our amazing visitors to take their best photos of our primates! I then tasked the primate team with picking their favourite photos to feature in today’s blog! I am very lucky that we have some amazing photographers in the team too who also wanted to feature their own work!

Jess B

Jess started off as a volunteer at a Primate Rehabilitation Centre in South Africa. In her previous blog, Meet Team Primates, she explained “even if you’re having a bad day the animals will always put a smile on your face and make you laugh. I also enjoy the training aspect and the bonds you get with the animals.”

Holly

For myself, International Primates Day is up there with one of my favourite days in the year; a whole day of celebrating all the amazing animals I am lucky enough to work with every day. Whether its mad haired Madge (Mandrill) presenting her bottom for scratches, a beautiful new baby chimpanzee being born, witnessing the arrival of our new orangutan, Awan (who is settling in well), or finally seeing one of our shy pygmy marmosets get on the scales for the first time; you can’t help but fall in love a little more with the job. Of course, there are the less glamorous parts of the job, but even on the hardest of days, all it takes is one animal to put a smile on your face and all the stress is washed away.

From left to right: Awan by Emily Vallance, Samwise By Jane White and Olive by Daz TakesPhotos.

Jess L

Jess has always wanted to work with animals and started to volunteer on the primate section when she was 17 years old! She said “I instantly knew what I wanted to work with, I find primates intriguing, funny and they will always have a special place in my heart (especially Lulu).”

When I first asked Jess why she loved working with primates she half joked saying “I don’t like other animals!”

From left to right: Edgar by Holly primates, colobus group by Savannah primates, and Fritz.

Sarah

Sarah knew her answer as soon as I asked the question; she barely took a minute to even think about it. Here’s why she loves working with our primates “Each individual and species are so varied in terms of personality and intelligence, it makes them so interesting to work with.”

From left to right: Pip (Barbary Macaque), Mali (Howler monkey) and Andrew the Bushbaby all taken by Sarah primates.

Faith

Faith only actually gave me a one word answer. BELAYAN!

From left to right: BELAYAN by Sarah primates, Margaret by Shelley Weiss, and Momo with Twiglet by Jane White.

Dani

It is no secret that any primate (especially ours here at Wingham) can be a little naughty, whether it’s Georgia the chimp spitting water at us or Elizabeth trying to wee on us in the training cage during the chimp talk, they definitely like to keep us on our toes. Dani loves “how I am able to form emotional bonds with primates. Also the mischievous antics they get up to can sometimes be hilarious!”

We discovered Dani can’t count when I asked her to pick three and she chose four instead! From left to right: Edgar by Holly primates, Margaret by Ruth, Lulu and Madge taken by Dani primates.

Henry

When I asked Henry, he actually gave me a list of why he loved working with primates and it goes as follows:

I love having the interaction with all the animals that I work with, from the chimps and orangs all the way to the little pygmy marmosets.
I love learning about them.
I love making them new enrichment devices or structures for them to interact with and explore.
I love being able to train an exotic species as well.

From left to right: Pygmy marmosets by Dani Primates, Margaret by Shelley Weiss, and Faye by Daz TakesPhotos.

Savannah

There are a lot of different ways to become a zookeeper (George posted a fantastic blog on her own zookeeping journey a few weeks ago). Savannah actually did work experience as part of her college course a couple years ago and she’s never left since completing her course. Savannah “finds primates fascinating, and when I did work experience I chose the primate section every time, loved it so much, fell in love with primates even MORE, and went for it when the apprenticeships opened up!”

From left to right: Jin, Rahona, Belayan and Molly all by Savannah primates.

Callum

We are lucky enough to be home to 2 great ape species, our chimpanzees and orangutans. Callum is our youngest member of the team at 17 years old but even at his young age he knew what he wanted to do. He told me “It started with my fascination with gorillas, then grew into more primate species and when I learned about their intelligence and mere strength, I fell in love with all primates and knew that’s what I wanted to work with when I was older.”

From left to right: Frodo by Savannah primates, Frodo by Holly primates and Night Monkeys by Holly primates.

So if you missed the celebrations in person, I hope you enjoyed a little insight on what the animals (and keepers) did to celebrate this special day! A massive thank you and well done to everyone who sent in their amazing photos, trust me when I say, deciding which ones to include was not an easy choice for any of us.