CONTACT: Rod Hackney
FOR RELEASE: October 16, 2000 Telephone: 336-879-7204
N.C. Zoo Chipanzees Begin Move To New Facilities
ASHEBORO—Four chimpanzees that had been exhibited for the past six months in the African Pavilion at the North Carolina
Zoo have been removed from public view while they are introduced to brand new facilities.
The four chimps, including a four-year-old male, a four-year-old female and two adult females, will be back on exhibit, along
with nine other chimps, when the zoo reopens it’s completely renovated outdoor chimpanzee habitat next May. The four had been
exhibited temporarily in the indoor African Pavilion habitat while the renovations were being completed.
Eleven of the N.C. Zoo’s chimpanzees went on a sabbatical to the Kansas City (Mo.) Zoo in the fall of 1998 to allow some
$1.6 million in construction to began on the chimp exhibit and holding quarters. The two young chimps were being hand-reared by
keepers at the time and could not join the rest of the troop in Kansas City. They remained at the N.C. Zoo throughout the
renovations. Two of the zoo’s oldest adult females were returned from Kansas City in May of this year to help teach the young
chimps some of the social skills needed to be accepted by the rest of the group.
The remaining nine adult chimps are expected to return to Asheboro on October 26. That will begin a process of acclimation to
both the new holding quarters, the new exhibit and the other chimps that will take a number of months to complete. The zoo’s
vastly improved half-acre outdoor chimpanzee habitat is slated to reopen to the public around next Memorial Day.
The zoo is an agency of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Bill Holman, Secretary.
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