00:04We have two red cheek gibbons here at the San Diego Zoo. You can find them at the upper monkey
00:10trails level right before entering Gorilla Tropics. First off we have Gabby. She's the
00:16female. She's the blonde and her brother Chewy is the dark individual that's usually in the
00:22in the background. He's got the yellow cheeks. Gabby and Chewy were born at the wild animal park
00:29and they're full brother and sister and they're quite heavily bonded so they
00:33always like to be together. They're great individuals, totally different
00:36personalities. She's the domineering one in the relationship. He's the more
00:40submissive, shy guy. So she pretty much calls the shots and determines what
00:46what they're going to be doing for the day. We established a training program to
00:51get these guys more comfortable with us and we decided to choose carabiner
00:55training. Gabby has a pink carabiner, Chewy has a blue carabiner and they they
01:01know exactly where to go. So wherever we would position the carabiner they would
01:06go to it touch it and initially and right away we would use the clicker and then
01:11reward them with one of their favorite treats which is usually raisins, corn, peas.
01:16Those are three of their favorites. They picked up on it very quickly and they they get
01:22very excited when they see the carabiners come out so we try to make it fun for
01:26them so it's it's not considered work. These guys they usually sing after they
01:31eat so we do about six or seven training sessions a day and usually Gabby
01:36initiates the song and Chewy chimes in towards the end and they're basically
02:00telling all the other possible gibbons or other animals in the area that this is
02:05our territory and this is where we're staying and if any intruders want to come
02:09in you're going to have a problem. So they're they're very territorial.
02:25When the gibbons are born they're all born blonde so they're camouflaged with the
02:30mom so they're blonde just like the mom the females grow up and they
02:35as well as the males and they get the dark coloring and then when the females
02:40reach sexual maturity they turn blonde again. If you look at their hands they
02:44have these hook-like hands that just make it really easy for them to to brachiate
02:49across the exhibit and just run through the trees if you will with their hands and
02:55even though they they tend to be mostly arboreal throughout the exhibit they're
02:59quite adept at running bipedally as well.
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