24/10/2024
🌿 Post-Release Monitoring Surprise: Cop’s Family Now Has 7 Members! 🌿
This International Gibbon Day, we’re thrilled to share a major discovery from our very latest post-release monitoring! 🐒💚
After almost 3 years of not tracking Cop, our team and volunteers, Amy and Kim, set off into the forest to check in on her. What we found was incredible—Cop’s family has grown to seven members!
Cop’s journey started when she was rescued from an illegal pet trade by the police and then we paired her with John, a male gibbon abandoned in a cage outside the forest. Together, they had their first daughter, Sherpa, and in 2012, we released this family into the wild.
A year later, Cop disappeared, and we feared the worst—until she reappeared a couple of years later with a new partner, Newbie, who was born in the wild from Dao and Payu, gibbon's pair we had released back in 2003. Since then, Cop and Newbie have had three more babies: Veera (2016), Durian (2018), and another baby in 2020, though sadly she didn’t survive. In 2021, Cop gave birth again, and during this very recent survey, we discovered two additional newborns!
But the discoveries didn’t end there.
We used to believe that gibbon mothers would give birth every 2-3 years, but Cop and other of our released gibbons have shown us something extraordinary; after their third baby, gibbon mothers seem to give birth every year !
We believe this could be due to the increased experience of motherhood and the freedom that comes with living in the wild. With the space and resources to nurture their families, experienced mothers like Cop may be able to care for more babies more quickly.
This discovery not only highlights Cop’s strength as a mother but also opens up exciting possibilities for the growth of wild gibbon populations.
This International Gibbon Day, we celebrate Cop’s incredible journey, the expanding gibbon families in the wild, and the importance of giving gibbons the freedom to thrive. A huge thanks to our team, volunteers, and supporters for making this possible. 🌿💚