I have a wildlife zoo-Chapter 626 - 625: The Skywalker Hoolock Gibbon

Fang Ye was deeply engrossed in designing when his phone suddenly "dinged."

He saw that someone had sent him a WeChat friend request using a hoolock gibbon as their profile picture.

Their note said their name was Fan Peng, a gibbon researcher.

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After Fang Ye accepted the friend request, he messaged, "Hello, Professor Fan!"

"Hello, Zoo Director Fang! The thing is, it might be a little complicated to explain..."

"No problem, take your time."

The other person took a while to explain!

Fan Peng was a researcher of gibbons, primarily focusing on the Skywalker hoolock gibbon.

There were originally believed to be two species of hoolock gibbons: the western hoolock gibbon and the eastern hoolock gibbon, with the Skywalker hoolock gibbon being unique to China, often confused with the eastern hoolock.

A few years ago, IUCN delineated an additional species among the hoolock gibbons, thanks to the work done by Fan Peng and his team.

Fang Ye responded with respect, "My apologies for not knowing! Oh, by the way, the gibbons we have in our zoo are Skywalker hoolocks, right?"

"Yes, the Skywalker hoolock gibbons also have the distinctive white eyebrows but they are not as thick as those of the eastern hoolock.

The male Skywalker hoolock gibbons don't have the matching white beards on their chins, and the white eye rings on the female Skywalker hoolock gibbons are not as dense as those on the eastern hoolocks."

He continued.

Gibbons live in forests, and people living in these forests carve out small areas of land for planting food and cash crops. Although the forests might look unchanged, the gaps formed between trees due to cultivation are like cliffs to gibbons that rely on tall trees for travel.

The trees gibbons can't reach with their long arms are like unattainable islands to them.

People always find ways to cultivate the forests, transitioning from surviving to living better, while the simple gibbons are still at the stage of remembering exactly which tree has fruit that's ripe.

To avoid humans, they are forced to migrate with the expansion of human activities.

After years of research, they discovered that the population of Skywalker hoolock gibbons was alarmingly low, with only about 40 families and fewer than 150 individuals in the wild.

With the forests fragmented and habitats broken, the reproduction of the Skywalker hoolock gibbons became problematic.

They found a female gibbon near a gibbon family that appeared to be the cousin of the male in that family.

With no single males nearby, Fan Peng and his team helped her to find potential mates further away.

Previously, they recalled a pair of old gibbons that had two sons; they went back to search and found one had already started a family, but the other was still single.

The two single gibbons were far apart; how could they be brought together?

Sedating and relocating them was out of the question. Skywalker hoolock gibbons stay in the trees, which makes them hard to locate and follow, and they move very swiftly, making it near impossible to sedate them from the ground.

Even if they managed to hit one, it could fall from tens of meters high—what if it died from the fall?

If sedation was successful, gibbons are very territorial, and if a strange gibbon suddenly appeared in another family's territory, conflict and fighting could break out. A sedated gibbon would be slow to react and could be killed.

In short, the risks of sedation were significant.

So Fan Peng and his team came up with an indirect solution; since gibbons can't be easily moved, their songs can be.

After years of research, it was found that the songs of gibbons are not meaningless chants; different melodies may have different lyrical meanings.

Could playing the mating songs of single gibbons attract them to move in the direction of the sound?

Of course, such a maneuver also carries scientific ethical risks!

Generally, wild populations should only be observed and not artificially interfered with, or it might change their habits and lead to unpredictable consequences.

But now the Skywalker hoolock gibbon is extremely endangered, with just over 150 individuals left. If nothing is done, two single gibbons that are too far apart, separated by many family territories, might never meet in a lifetime.

So after much deliberation, Fan Peng and his team decided to interfere a little.

Love songs do not necessarily have to start with a male gibbon prepared for matchmaking. Tracking gibbons in dense rainforests is a daunting task; gibbons can swing from one tree to another, while those on the ground have to climb over hills and down ditches, with branches pulling at their arms and vines tripping them up.

It is much more convenient to use a single gibbon in a zoo as an alternative, recording its mating songs.

After all, they are all courtship songs.

I had visited Feiyuan Zoo several times previously for research on Skywalker hoolock gibbons and remembered they had two young males. Wondering if they had reached mating age, I inquired only to find out that both had been transferred to Linhai Zoo.

That's the whole story.

Just then, a "ding" chimed, the system notification sounded: "Rare animal clue has appeared!"

[Animal: Skywalker hoolock gibbon

Location: Yunnan Gaoligong Mountain Area

Protection Time: Ten years (during the protection time, the animal will not face a life-threatening crisis)

Note: The forest disappears at a rate of 30 hectares a minute, how fast must I walk to catch up with your fading presence?

Reward: World Association of Zoos and Aquariums Membership Certificate!]

Fang Ye saw the reward and was instantly surprised: "Wow!"

There is also a zoo association in the country, and Fang Ye had initially asked about joining when he talked with the director of Lanhe Zoo.

He learned that joining or not didn't matter, and acquiring transferred animals wouldn't be affected by whether one was a member or not.

Every year there's a meeting to exchange information on animals' breeding status and discuss outstanding enrichment cases.

Of course, that hasn't much use anyway, as outstanding zoos tend to communicate separately, and those that are failing still won't improve.

Essentially, it's quite an official association where everyone meets and speaks together.

However, since most domestic zoos are members, Fang Ye lost interest after learning about it. Why join the crowd?

But the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums is different! Only the most excellent zoos in the world can join.

With so many zoos big and small worldwide, only a few hundred are members, and even fewer from within the country are members of the World Association.

Originally, there weren't many restrictions on zoos purchasing animals, but now, if one wants to buy some rare animals from other countries, like silverback gorillas, koalas, or Komodo dragons, one must at least be a member of the association. It's not something you can just buy if you want.

The main goal is to ensure that some endangered wild animals don't enter zoos through smuggling channels and that the zoos that purchase them have the capability to provide proper care.

Of course, having the qualifications is one thing; whether you can actually acquire the animals is another.