Animal exchange programme: Gift from Chennai

Hindustan Times, October 27, 2006

Avishek G. Dastidar
New Delhi, October 26

Under the animal-exchange programme, the Delhi zoo has received two Lion Tail Macaques from the Chennai zoo on Wednesday. It is a pair of a male and a female for “reproductive convenience in the future”, zoo director D.N. Singh told HT. The zoo will keep both the animals under medical observation before transferring them to the enclosure.

What needs to be noted is that in the wild male and female macaque monkeys lead totally separate lives, and the only sexual long term bonding that takes place is between two males or two female macaques.

To keep a male and a female monkey together, and keeping them apart from their same-sex groups is against their natural needs and behaviour.