More Monkey Business this Halloween with Aspinall Foundation

Well it’s all kicking of at the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park, as the primate keepers got themselves ready for Halloween in a rather unusual way. The park, near Ashford in Kent, is home to some amazing monkeys, so the keepers thought it would be great fun to involve the animals in some ghoulish fun before the witching hour kicks off!

The keepers added broomsticks, that contained nuts and fruit within their bamboo casing ,for the monkeys to play with and work out how to grab the treats inside. This Halloween based puzzle is a great way to keep the monkeys inquisitive minds active, and also a really unusual way to offer then some nourishment.

Head Primate Keeper, Simon Jeffrey, said –

We are constantly looking for new ways to provide mental, sensory or physical enrichment for our primates – being naturally active and curious they require a lot of stimulation. The broomsticks provided something unusual and challenging for them. We tried the brooms with the capuchins first and they got a lot of joy out of the unusual feeder, we then tried a group of howler monkeys and they also enjoyed the broomsticks and finally we gave them to our group of Guinea baboons who delighted in ripping the broomsticks apart and chewing on the bamboo.

Check out the brilliant video below to see how they managed to deal with their broomsticks!

Halloween is always a great time to visit the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park, as there’s always something going on for people to get involved with, and not just the monkeys! This year their will be even be pumpkin carving with prizes, as well as loads of other ghostly forms of animal enrichment that is sure to be loads of fun to watch.