Auckland Zoo Plans Monkey Tea Parties

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27664, 21 May 1955, Page 6

Auckland Zoo Plans Monkey Tea Parties

“The Press” Special Service ATTr.TCT.AKni on

tut i. u AUCKLAND, May 20. Monkeys holding. a tea party may become a common sight at the Auckland zoo. The park’s committee of the City Council also hopes it will be a lucrative practice.

The committee has recommended the council to import four trained chim«rns»ees *° d° the entertaining. Mr W. Butler, chairman of the committee, said that the zoo needed first-class money-spinners to bolster income.

Parties of the riotous kind held by “So-So,” “Compo,” “Sally,” and “Susan,” of the London Zoo, whose table manners have delighted thous-

ands. ar e envisaged by the committee. The animals are expected to cost the. council between £l5O and £250 and to transport them to New Zealand -rom Britain another £2OO or more According to the zoo director, Mr R W. Roach, chimpanzees caught in the wilds would have to live at least six months in an overseas 200 before being delivered. They could thus be trained before their arrival..

Mr Roach thinks it improbable that chimpanzees could be landed here before December, 1956.

The chairman of the council works committee (Mr S. Howard Hunter) interviewed the London Zoo authorities on the parks committee’s behalf when he was overseas recently