Home Away From Home

While we were in the Isle of Wight and visited the zoo I was reminded of a place over in Dorset which I've been too a couple of times and is one of my absolute favourites and since the weather is still in late summer mode we decided to spend a day at Monkey World. Some may recognise the place as that off of the TV series Monkey Business and/or Monkey Life and I absolutely adore watching the monkeys just potter about their little world doing things which sometimes seem very human and other times totally....erm...monkey...though largely it's all about the cuteness.

Example of human...have seen similar poses on many a park bench over the summer

Awwwww....

The fantastic thing about Monkey World is that all of the animals have been rescued from illegal pet sellers, circuses, folk who realise that the cute baby chimp they bought for a pet grows up and starts destroying their house....Here, since most cannot be returned to the wild, they have fantastic enclosures with plenty of climbing areas.


My favourites are the Chimpanzees who will spend much of their time making nests out of straw and blankets, occasionally make a fuss of each other and chasing around the enclosure for no particular reason and....um....eating their own (and each others) poop.... (which dad and I found very amusing...mum...not so much)


Love this one's attempt at Yoga...is that the Crab...or perhaps the dead Armadillo?


Time for some grooming


And some grub


Followed by a touch of nose picking.....


And after a busy day of being a Chimpanzee.....


Jim Cronin and his wife Allison are the amazing pair behind this sanctuary and have worked really hard gaining publicity for the animals plight and travelling all round the world giving poorly treated animals a chance to be a monkey...sadly Jim Cronin died a couple of years ago, his wife and staff at the centre carry on his work and set up a memorial fund in his honour.


There are various species which are cared for at the sanctuary.....

Gibbons


Capuchin Monkey's...last year 88 were rescued from a testing facility.


Ring Tailed Lemurs


And other favourite of mine the Orangutan.....


Before we left we even managed to find dads Doppelganger.....


And of course the Chimps weren't shy of showing all and sundry their best side....


I was this close....*puts thumb and fore finger a centimetre apart*....to getting the shot of one Chimp dropping a steaming turd into his own hand....licking it like a soft scoop ice cream before dropping it onto the floor of his enclosure and licking his fingers as if he'd just eaten some KFC....luckily for you readers the sun was shining on the glass creating flare so I didn't get the shot....I get did a picture of this however......Mmmmmm, yum