Carlos — From Bottle Baby to a Real Gibbon

Carlos is the son of gibbons Mozart and Constance. When he was just one month old, his mother developed mastitis and could no longer nurse him. We tried everything from penicillin and echinacea to extra vitamins and heat, but nothing helped. Carlos grew weaker by the day, and we faced a difficult choice: should we let nature take its course, or intervene and save him, knowing he could never return to his mother?

We chose life and chose to give Carlos a chance. When we reached in, Constance eventually let go — almost as if she recognised she could not manage it herself — and she set Carlos down.

For the next three months, we had a baby in the house again. Carlos needed feeding every three hours around the clock, and he only settled when he slept on our stomachs. Slowly he learned to sleep alone: first in a bed beside us, then in a guest bed in the dining room, and after four months he was also eating solid food.

All his play and daily life revolved around one thing: becoming a real gibbon. He learned to climb to great heights and hang by his arms again and again. Everything with a single purpose — to prepare him for life as a gibbon among his own kind.

When Carlos was about one year old, he started in a "playroom" — an enclosure filled with straw, branches, and ropes for climbing. We began leaving him alone for short periods that gradually grew longer. The biggest step was when he had to sleep alone in the enclosure overnight. But Carlos managed it, and it became an important milestone on the path to an independent life.

In the spring of 2012, Carlos got his own enclosure in the middle of the park. At first he still slept indoors at night, but from the spring of 2013 he began sleeping outside too, like a proper gibbon.

Carlos's story is a success story. He is happy, active, and full of life. He plays through his days, develops his motor skills, hangs by his legs, climbs high, and swings from branch to branch with his long arms — exactly as a gibbon should.

The next step in Carlos's life is to move in with his sisters, Gismo and Ronda. A process we have already begun, and one we believe will go really well.