#Chimpanzee #dead #fight #peers #Beekse #Bergen
Mariska Vermij – Van DijkChimpanzee Wouter in Beekse Bergen
NOS News•today, 07:24•Changed today, 12:02
A chimpanzee died after a fight with others in the Beekse Bergen safari park. The animal survived the altercation, but was seriously injured. The chimpanzee eventually died on the operating table.
“Conflicts and fights are part of chimpanzees. The animals often run after each other with a lot of screaming and noise,” says head zookeeper Kris Jansen. “But I have not often seen such a bad fight with such injuries in my seventeen years at Beekse Bergen.”
The chimpanzee named Wouter was 23 years old. On average, the monkeys in captivity live to be about 40 years old. “Because he was so seriously injured, we made the difficult decision to anesthetize him. We know that anesthesia can be very dangerous, but we were afraid that he might also have internal bleeding.” Jansen took the animal’s remains to the laboratory today where they are being examined.
Captivity
According to the keeper, these types of situations are no more common in captivity than in the wild. “Chimpanzees live in hierarchical groups. They are naturally aggressive animals, so conflict and reconciliation are part of that. Chimpanzees and humans are very similar and some fight, lie and cheat.”
Last year drowned another chimpanzee in a canal in Beekse Bergen, also after a fight with other monkeys. “That was really a different situation,” said Jansen. “Chimpanzees cannot swim and are afraid of water. There is a moat around their enclosure, the beginning of which is shallow so that they can stand. During a conflict around that moat, a monkey slipped and drowned.”
About twenty chimpanzees live in the zoo, divided into two groups.
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