Couple takes in abandoned baby chimp in bid to save its life

By Jack Fifield

A married couple spent a month sleeping with a baby chimp in their bed—in a bid to save its life.

Baby western chimpanzee Jane was abandoned by her mom Tara shortly after she was born in February—leaving the owner of Kent’s Wingham Wildlife Park, Tony Binskin, 65, having to decide what to do.

Jane’s aunt Georgia had started to look after the newborn, but as she doesn’t produce milk, she was unable to sustain her.

So Tony’s wife of 46 years and secretary, Jackie, 63, took the decision to hand-rear—including letting Jane sleep on top of her in her own bed for a month.

The couple had a ‘big cushion’ between them in their bed to ensure Tony didn’t accidentally roll into baby Jane, who weighed 1.5 kilograms at birth.

Tony said: “For chimps, they need that real strong bond of contact—when they’re born they’re on mom, and they stay on mom for at least a month before they start moving around, or mom might give her to [aunt] Georgia to look after.

“Jackie made the decision that she needs to be on her for that month, so Jackie slept with her on her back and baby on her chest for a month, to try and simulate what really happens.”

Jackie said: “She fed every hour; she didn’t just sleep.

“When she woke up, she didn’t wake up to cry, she just waved all her arms around—she was every hour, then every two hours.

“But she survived; that’s the main thing.”

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Now, the couple are racing to try to reintroduce Jane to the enclosure full-time before she turns 6 months old—when other chimps will stop seeing her as a baby and start seeing her as a juvenile.

The critically endangered western chimpanzee is named after the late primatologist Jane Goodall, who visited the park’s chimpanzee enclosure in December 2015.

Tony thinks she was rejected by her mom because she was already carrying a sibling.

He said: “Jane’s mom Tara has already got a 2-year-old—normally at that age they go on the back, but for some reason, Margaret is still on her belly.

“We’re assuming that Tara has had Jane and gone ‘I’m not sure what to do with this, I’ve already got one on my belly, we only carry one at a time.’”

Jane has been sleeping in a carry cot for the past eight weeks and will soon be spending nights in the chimp house on her own.

The hope is that her aunty Georgia, described by Jackie as being a ‘good aunty’, will be able to take care of her once she is reintroduced.

Tony said: “We don’t want people to think she is a pet—she is not a pet.

“We’re against pets indoors, especially apes and monkeys—we don’t want anyone to get the idea that it’s OK.

“We don’t think it’s OK—we’re a zoo, and we think they should be in with their troop. Now, our utmost priority is to get her back in with the troop.

“It’s so important to us; that’s where she belongs.

“The longer she’s with us, the more she’s going to be humanized, and we want her to be a chimp and spend the rest of her life in our chimp house.”