Last Sunday we flew to Sacramento, California to assist with the transport of our chimpanzees. We got our rental vehicle, stocked up on road trip essentials and headed to the hotel for a good night’s rest. At 8am we met our team:

• Dr. Maryanne, Houston Zoo veterinarian
• Sharon, Houston Zoo VP of Animal Operations
• Dr. Andrea,  Oakland Zoo veterinarian
• Dennis and Roger, our drivers
• Greg and Carol, the owners of the chimps
• Me, Houston Zoo Curator of Primates and Carnivores

Once the trailer was in position, we began loading the chimps into crates.

A/C, some hay to lie in, and plenty of bananas

All of us were on the road by early afternoon and had a long trip ahead of us. In order to minimize the amount of time the chimps were on the truck we drove straight through, for a total of 42 hours, arriving at the zoo about 11am Wednesday morning. We stopped every few hours at truck stops to check the chimps and feed them. Overall, they seemed to enjoy the trip and I suppose we did too, except for being a bit sleep-deprived.

so good to be home!

More Posts Like This!

• Chimp Building Update: Finishing Touches The building is almost done. There’s a bit more work to do and then its up to us to get...
• Free Educational iPad Book About Chimps Now Available Chimps Should Be Chimps is designed for early readers Available just in time for holiday reading, a new children’s book...
• 12 Days of Grub: Day 10 – Ten Chimps a Chasing On the Tenth Day of Grub, your zoo gift will help to feed…Ten Chimps a Chasing, Nine Fruit Bats Flying,...
• Tasty Treat Houston Zoo Chimps & Snowmen-4911, a photo by Houston Zoo on Flickr. One of our chimps eating a frozen sweet...
• Chimp Building Update: A Roof Over Our Heads A few more weeks of construction and the building has a roof – this place is starting to look like...