monkey life(6/14)
18.30–19.00

Continuing on Five this week is the series that follows the day-to-day lives of the 160 monkeys, chimps, orangutans and other primates that live in one of the largest rescue centres in the world: the Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre in Dorset.

Filmed over the course of a year, the series follows the rescue and rehabilitation stories of some of the world’s most abused and neglected primates, and finds out how the staff – including animal manger Jeremy and keepers Emma, Paul and Mike – look after their furry charges. Every weekday, the series recounts the centre’s funniest and most shocking stories, alongside animal dramas of all kinds.

The series also documents the hard work of the late Jim Cronin and his wife Alison in their mission to stop the illegal smuggling of these animals. Jim founded Monkey World, which he and Alison built from a small refuge to a 65-acre wildlife park that is now home to more than 160 rescued primates and 15 different species.

In today’s programme, we catch up with Carli and Gypsy, the two newest chimp hooligans who have joined the boisterous bachelor group. And Jim and Alison are on a rescue mission to Hungary to collect stump-tailed macaque Koko. She has been living in a pet-shop cage for 20 years, so the team gets a feisty greeting when she arrives!

Tomorrow, nerves run high as the team attempts a first: a surrogate mum for a newborn baby orangutan. Will 12-year-old Hsiao Quai be willing to look after little Dinda, who was not feeding with her birth mother Ro-Ro? In Hananya’s group, an unimpressed Patricia is being pursued by alpha male Hananya. And baby woolly monkey Julio, now four months old, makes some good progress in his social development.

On Wednesday, the bachelor boys are up to their usual hooligan tricks, and there is concern when chimp Joline is struck down by a mystery illness and suffers from hair loss and head swelling. With allergy and infection ruled out, Joline’s symptoms could be the start of something much more serious. Elsewhere, Koko is introduced to the great outdoors after two decades in a pet-shop cage.

Thursday’s programme sees Koko meeting her first companion in years: old boy Gerald. And there is great excitement when golden-cheeked gibbon couple Peanut and Pung-Yo welcome a new arrival –great news, as the breed is endangered in the wild. Because they are so rare, there have been very few studies of these gibbons, so this baby offers the perfect opportunity to observe the golden-cheeked gibbon’s development process. Meanwhile, young chimp Johni enjoys this newfound confidence, and Dinda is about to embark on her new life with her orangutan family.

On Friday, it is time for baby woolly monkey Julio to leave his life living with humans. There is a shocking exit from the park for a capuchin monkey family when, 18 months after their rescue, a court order means they have to leave. And preparations begin for rescuing three-year-old chimp Bryan, who was stolen from West Africa and has been living as a photographer’s prop in Mexico.