The Great Big Monkey World Sleepover

This is a post for anyone who loves animals (apes and monkeys in particular), as I cannot show enough support for Monkey World in Dorset, and every now and again like to feature them. I’ve posted about my Monkey World trips before, as we try to visit the park every year to see our adopted chimps and to show our support for the great work that they do rescuing and rehabilitating primates.

Anyway, as adoptive parents we had the opportunity to attend the Great Big Sleepover event this month, so this was a different sort of visit to usual. It involved camping over and seeing the park’s primates after hours and early in the morning, and it was really lovely to see them bedding down and also fresh and lively in the early hours before the park got busier. The Monkey World team are great at fundraising initiatives and this event was really well organised. There was loads of great food (sweet treats, a hog roast, fruit crumbles and pies, a full English breakfast…), a campfire, evening entertainment and a great opportunity to ask some in-depth questions to the primate care staff. I’m not really cut out for camping and was aching, cold and unbelievably tired the next day, but it was definitely worth it for the overall experience!

If you don’t know about Monkey World at all then you can get up to speed by watching their TV show Monkey Life on Animal Planet. So if you haven’t already, why not check out the show and fall in love with the characters and the animals?! As I mentioned we are adoptive parents of a chimp at Monkey World – Bryan. Bryan arrived at the park when he was around 3 after being rescued from being a beach photographer’s prop in Mexico and where the photographer had pulled out almost all of his teeth. He’s now doing really well at the park and is looking really massive and heading up his own small group of chimps – this is lovely to see and a great example of the work they do at Monkey World!

Bryan!