Another bundle of joy at the zoo

By Sylvia Low

HAPPY monkeys are in a better mood to mate.

With the birth of the fifth proboscis monkey to Manis, the zoo now has nine of these animals. -- AZIZ HUSSIN

And proboscis monkeys at the Singapore Zoo appear to be a contented lot - a fifth baby was born recently and a sixth is on the way.

Still unnamed, the newborn male is the pride and joy of 15-year-old Manis, the same monkey that gave birth to the zoo's first and third proboscis babies.

With the latest addition, the zoo's proboscis family - members of a highly-endangered species with only 7,000 left in the world - now has nine members made up of five males and four females. They have been housed in the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) Conservation Centre since June 1998.

A zoo official said the emotional well-being of animals is best expressed by their level of mating.

Being part of the In-Captive Breeding Programme, the monkeys' reproductive feat has, once again, notched for the zoo the title of being the world's most successful breeding facility for these animals.

'It's been only three years since 1998, when the monkeys joined us, and five babies in three years is indeed an achievement,' said Dr Cheng Wen-Haur, executive director of the Singapore Zoo.

But the good news does not end here.

Deva, the other adult female who bore the family's second and fourth babies, is pregnant again and the sixth bundle of joy is expected to arrive in July.

So what explains the zoo's high breeding rate of these primates, whose rarity also lies in their resistance to captivity breeding?

The answer: Good food, great care and an ingenious habitat design.