Monkey magic! (From Bournemouth Echo)

Monkey magic!

7:00am Tuesday 22nd July 2008 in

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IT was a dream he did not live to see come true, but the founder of Monkey World would have been justly proud of the centre's latest achievement.

The wife of the late Jim Cronin, Dr Alison Cronin, has this week returned from Vietnam where, after six years of work, a 64-hectare rehabilitation centre for golden-cheeked gibbons rescued from the sickening smuggling trade has been opened.

Alison said: "All those years ago Jim turned to me when we saw the first illegal shipment of gibbons in Thailand and said We should do something about this'."

Working with the Vietnamese authorities, a project began to establish a primate rescue centre in the south of the country, at Cat Tien National Park.

Alison explained: "We're trying to keep the animals where they belong, which has always been the Monkey World goal."

Monkey World has been the main financial and technical contributor to the project, and has been working with its counterpart Pingtung Rescue Centre in Taiwan.

At the moment there are 10 rehabilitation cages at the centre, set in the forest. The idea is to keep the setting as close to the natural environment as possible.

Alison went out to officially open the centre and she also saw for the first time a memorial stone to her late husband, who founded the park at Wool more than 20 years ago.

Jim died just eight weeks after being diagnosed with liver cancer at the start of 2007.

"He knew that we were just about to get going with this when he fell ill. That's a great sadness. For me it's been absolutely enormous on two different levels, both personally and professionally," she said.

"Jim knew that we could achieve something for an endangered species. Jim and I got this project started six years ago now and to see it finally come to be was very emotional; last week was pretty tough emotionally, opening the centre and the memorial to him," said Alison.

The project has got under way with six golden-cheeked gibbons, three of which were rescued from a school playground - where they were kept in a small cage to amuse children - and three that were at a construction yard by a roadside rest stop.

Phase two of the project will hopefully see the rescued gibbons released into semi-wild enclosures, before being released back into the park proper.

Ultimately, Alison is hoping that two golden-cheeked gibbons, Peanut and Pung Yo and their son, Tien - named after the new park - can be returned there from their adopted Dorset home.

That will be a landmark in Monkey World's history, as the park has not yet returned a primate it has saved back to the wild, and a fitting tribute to the man who created the project six years ago.

A charity - the Endangered Asian Species Trust - has been set up to support the project. More details are available at monkeyworld.org.