Today, July 14, the whole world celebrates World Chimpanzee Day.

Chimpanzees are believed to be humans' closest relatives, yet they were unknown in most of the world until Charles Darwin wrote about them in 1856. And only after a century, people began to recognize interesting facts from the life of these primates. The "first discoverer" of the secrets of chimpanzees was Dr. Jane Goodall, who began studying these apes in Gombe Stream National Park on July 14, 1960. The significant day was named "International Chimpanzee Day". In 2018, the name was changed to "World Chimpanzee Day".

The purpose of this day is to raise awareness of the importance of these amazing animals in the wild, to preserve the environment and to prevent the illegal trade of wild chimpanzees.

In the last 20-30 years, a rapid reduction of the chimpanzee population has been observed. This is related to the destruction and degradation of their habitat (large-scale logging), poaching for meat and illegal trade in cubs. Recently, infectious diseases have become a major threat to the chimpanzee population. The fact is that chimpanzees are susceptible to human diseases, and in connection with the growth of contacts between them and people, there is an increase in the number of cases of infection.

There are only two species of chimpanzees in nature – chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and bonobo (Pan paniscus). And each species needs protection.

Mykolaiv Zoo joins the celebration of this holiday. After all, a group of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) consisting of 5 individuals is kept in our zoo.

The group is led by the oldest female named Ambi – she is 55 years old, followed by the 25-year-old female Aliti and her three children born in our zoo: Chilina (born in 2008), Ramina (born in 2012), Sherman (born in 2016).

In honor of today's holiday, visitors who came to the zoo had the opportunity to take part in the demonstrative feeding of chimpanzees, which also took place with the participation of young biologists of the zoo. So much attention and delicious fruit! Everyone was satisfied!

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