You know how people often say on their children’s birthdays that it makes them feel old? Well that’s how I’m starting to feel about the 19th of January…I almost can’t believe it myself, and I’m sure a lot of you guys probably can’t either, but this year our young chimpanzee Elizabeth is celebrating her second birthday!
If you’re a long time follower of our keeper’s blog you may remember that this time last year for her birthday I dropped in with a blog celebrating the first year of her life, so I thought it only right to drop back in again this year with another update.
But before we talk about Elizabeth herself, I thought it would be good to explain a little about chimpanzee reproduction and development in general so that you can understand the processes and stages Elizabeth and her wild counterparts go through on their journey to adulthood.
Chimpanzee Reproduction and Development
In the wild, chimpanzee females usually give birth to their first offspring, on average, between the ages of 13 and 14 years old and unlike many other mammals, there is no evidence of a birth season meaning that chimpanzee babies are born throughout the year. The gestation period (meaning the length of time spent being pregnant) is almost 8 months long – longer than most other primates and a very similar length to that of our own gestation period, but that is not surprising considering that chimpanzees are our closest living relatives on the planet!
Chimpanzee mothers are responsible for the majority of parental care, and when a chimpanzee baby is born they are helpless to survive without their mother’s support. They stay in constant ventral-ventral contact (meaning they face forwards into their mothers chest/stomach) for at least 30 days and are not able to even support their own weight until they are almost two months old.
For the first year of their life, chimpanzee infants stay extremely close to their mothers and will rarely break contact with them, it isn’t until the second year of their life that they begin to explore the world around them a little more, and start travelling and sitting more independently (although still with mum close by).
The second birthday is, in fact, a fairly big milestone for a chimpanzees, as it is around the age of two that they really start to build their independence – nursing behaviour decreases and independent eating and play starts to take off!
The infancy period ends between the ages of 4 and 6 when they are finally (to mums relief I am sure) fully weaned.
Ages 6 to 9 mark the juvenile period for a chimpanzee and it is during this time they start to have greater social interactions with other members of their group. They also play more independently and watch other chimpanzees more closely so that they can begin building the life skills they need for adulthood.
And that, in a nutshell, is how a baby chimpanzee grows up!
Back to the Girl in Question
So for an update on our little diva herself, I’m pleased to say that Elizabeth’s second year has been a great one. As you all know, her first year came with a few bumps in the road, we had some concerns about the rate of her development and the nutrition she was getting from mum Tara. We made the decision to supplement her feeds – this is something we have continued to do and that we believe has made all the difference.
Our chimpanzees are all scale-trained so that we can monitor their weights and this year we’ve been working on this with Elizabeth too – with the extra milk from us, her weight is increasing at the perfect rate and she’s a very happy and healthy chimpanzee. Twice a day the primate keepers prepare an appetising concoction of SMA milk mixed with a little sugar-free blackcurrant squash which Elizabeth happily drinks from a bottle through the mesh – and yes, it does look like some kind of unusual unicorn-themed milkshake but we have a fussy chimpanzee on our hands and if her milk isn’t pink then she isn’t interested in drinking it!
On top of this, as she has gradually begun the weaning process, her confidence in trying new foods has grown too – she’s no longer an innocent bystander during mealtimes, and has recently started barging her way into the chimpanzee’s breakfast buffet by herself to make sure she can snatch up her own Elizabeth-sized portion of the food before the other chimpanzees gobble it all down. She’s even started joining in with some of the extra, more unusual treats the chimpanzees get for enrichment having tried her first ever boiled egg this year.
Talking of enrichment, it’s not only her body that’s been growing, but her brain has too; Elizabeth is super smart for her age already and after watching some of the adult chimpanzee’s carefully for a while, she’s picked up how to solve some of the puzzle feeders we give to the group to keep their brains busy.
And finally there’s something else she’s been working on this year and that’s her climbing….after spending the majority of the first year of her life attached to mum, she’s been itching to explore every inch of their vast enclosure and has made it her mission this year to do so. She’s grown into a very skillful explorer and now you’ll often find her hanging out in all sorts of positions around their home.
The Big Day
You must all know by now if there’s one thing we love at Wingham Wildlife Park it’s a chimpanzee birthday party, and while it might only take the chimpanzees 30 minutes to devour the whole spread, it definitely takes us keepers a lot longer to put it all together.
There’s a surprising amount of behind the scenes preparation that goes into throwing a successful party for 8 chimpanzees! This year’s event came complete with banners, party hats, plates, cakes, juice and piles of presents (our super primate keeper, Juliet devoted a whole afternoon to wrapping presents and painting to make sure there were enough gifts for everyone in the group).
Elizabeth was even lucky enough this year to get seven birthday cards, one from each of the other chimpanzees.
That’s all for this years birthday update, so I hope you’ve enjoyed catching up on Elizabeth’s second year with me and I’ll finish up by leaving some pictures from the big celebration this year…no doubt I’ll be back with another update this time next year!
Nadine x
Elizabeth’s 2nd Birthday
