Cute alert: Assiniboine Park Zoo welcomes newborn white-handed gibbon
Infant born Monday is 3rd child of gibbon pair Maya and Samson
Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo has an adorable new arrival.
A new baby gibbon was born Monday to Maya and Samson, two white-handed gibbons who were matched on a recommendation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' species survival plan program.
So far, mom and baby are in good health and are bonding well, while its big siblings are being very respectful, said Fran Donnelly, an animal care professional at the zoo.
"It's a really great family dynamic that they're developing," Donnelly said.
On Friday, Maya could be seen swinging around her habitat with the tiny primate latched onto her belly.
This is the pair's third baby.
In 2019, the two had their first child, Salju, who was the first infant born at the zoo's gibbon habitat.
Their second child, Merrick, was born in 2021.
The sex of the new baby isn't known yet.
Its name might be chosen by the public through an online survey, similar to how its siblings got their names, Donnelly said.
"We may do that again, or it may be a [zoo]keeper naming situation. Each offspring is a little bit different," she said.
White-handed gibbons are an endangered species that are native to southeast Asia.
They're typically "found in the canopy of the trees — so they like to be way up high," Donnelly said, adding that visitors can expect similar behaviour at the gibbons' habitat at the zoo.
"You can always look way up high as well, because they like hanging out in the rafters and at the windows."
The gibbon exhibit was closed to visitors for most of the week following the birth but will reopen Saturday.
There were no gibbons at the zoo for a while after the old monkey house was closed in 2011 because it didn't meet modern standards. Maya was born at the Winnipeg zoo shortly before that monkey house was closed.
She lived at Safari Niagara, a private zoo in Ontario, until the new exhibit opened in the former lion pavilion at the Assiniboine Park Zoo in 2017.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
