Thanks to a collaborative effort with the Dane County Humane Society in Wisconsin, the Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary was able to welcome a 3-year-old baboon who up until then had been confined to a laundry room! Here’s how the rescue unfolded on our Facebook page:
Aug. 24, 2011: We started work today modifying one of the baboon safety enclosures — stay tuned during the next week for some exciting news 😉
Aug. 28: It reached 110 at the sanctuary today but we still managed to get some more work done on the baboon cage modification. Marvin was watching us closely making sure we were doing it right!
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Aug. 29: Monkey left Madison, Wis., this morning and is in route to the sanctuary. If all goes well we expect him sometime late tomorrow afternoon.
Aug. 30: After a very long drive (kudos to Dustin and Mike from the Humane Society in Madison) Monkey has arrived! He immediately came out of the transport crate and proceeded to survey the enclosure. Marvin, who supervised our work, would not leave his sight and the new youngster showed no fear as he walked right up to Marvin and they both lip-smacked a non-aggressive greeting. Marvin is extremely interested in the young baboon and we’ll watch closely to see if their relationship blossoms. In the meantime we have more work to do building furniture for the enclosure while the new arrival adjusts to his new life. Welcome home, Monkey! (Let’s definitely give him a good name — any ideas?
Aug. 30: Raw video of our new baboon arrival exploring while Marvin looks on. He’s very agile for never having this kind of space. Monkey is about 30 pounds, Marvin is about 85 pounds. Some good names already, please keep them coming 🙂
Aug. 31: Happy to say that our new boon arrival is doing very well! We opened up the other side of his enclosure and he now races all the way around and through both sides. He’s incredibly fast and athletic and we hope he feels pure joy being able to finally stretch out and run like a young baboon should. Marvin is still watching him closely and now Monkey is watching the other baboons with great interest.