It’s a GIRL!

Happy New Year to you all and welcome to my first blog of 2024.

We were keeping a secret from you all for 8 months! In 2023 our primate keepers reported positive a pregnancy test on 12^th May 2023 for Tara, our critically endangered dominate female Western Chimpanzee. We all had our fingers crossed that her second pregnancy was going to go as smoothly as her first! We estimated her due date to be between mid-November to mid-December.

Our newest addition

I’m sure that most of you have already seen our latest addition to our chimpanzee troop, Tara’s new baby who was born on Sunday 3^rd December 2023. Our primate keepers made their predictions over on our Instagram page. 6 of our staff predicted a boy and only 2 guessed correctly that it would be a girl. Well done George and Jess H.

This baby is Tara and Fritz’s second baby born here at the park. Elizabeth was their first, making Elizabeth, or as the keepers affectionately call her Liz, now a big sister.

How has Elizabeth been?

Liz is going to be turning 6 years old in a couple of weeks, making it the perfect time for her to start learning for herself how to look after an infant. A vitally important lesson for Liz’s future success as a mother as she observes how Tara does it.

Jealousy?

At first, Liz was fairly jealousy of Tara’s attention being focused on her new baby, leaving Liz feeling a little left out. She is after all, a very spoilt princess within the troop. She usually gets whatever she wants, when she wants it, without repercussions. No one would tell off Liz due to Tara’s wrath, but as Tara is now occupied with her new baby, Liz is starting to be put in her place a little by the others within the troop.

There were a few instances where Liz was a little rough with the latest addition and tried to grab hold of her little sister. Tara, being the ever-attentive mother, would allow a few touches but stopped her oldest baby when she was a bit too rough. This left the rest of the troop to deal with an adolescent, envious Liz.

Liz has quite a naughty streak in her. This has only ramped up more recently with her wanting to take her frustrations at being ignored by her mother out of the rest of the troop.

Have the others stepped in to help?

Lucas, Faye, and Georgia, have all been playing much more frequently with Liz over the past couple of weeks. Whether this is due to Liz seeking out others’ attention and company or just wanting to play more, it’s a little unclear. But one thing for sure is that Liz is keeping the others on their toes with her cheeky behaviour.

Elizabeth’s bond with Tara

But don’t worry, Liz is still allowed plenty of cuddles with mum. She has also been taking part in grooming sessions with her as well as taking naps next to Tara. Their bond is still incredibly strong and one which will last a lifetime as they will recognize each other as mother and daughter for the remainder of their lives.

As the little one starts to grow, we hope to see that Liz will take an active part in her care and will hopefully babysit and play with her sister, showing her the ropes with how to manipulate everyone into getting what she wants. Exactly like Tara and Liz already do now.

Liz is definitely going to be a bad influence; we can tell already.

But what about a name for our baby girl?!

We plan to name her as we did Elizabeth. We’ll pick your 10 best suggestions and put them on blankets. Tara will pick out the name by passing her chosen blanket back to keepers through the mesh.

Get ready to put forward your name suggestions on our Facebook page.

Source: winghamwildlifepark.co.uk