Hodonin Zoo chooses EB-1955

Projectors have been installed at Hodonín Zoo with the aim of reacquainting the chimpanzees with natural habits lost during a life in captivity. Hodonín Zoo is hoping that this project will bring new life to the chimp enclosures.

Will Sherley finally become a dad? Many visitors to Hodonín Zoo ask the same question when they visit the primate enclosure. This is where the male chimpanzee Sherley lives alongside two females originally from Liberec Zoo, who joined Sherley in 2009 when he was nine years old. Animals kept in captivity, however, tend to lose their natural instincts, which in Sherley’s case means he is not showing much interest in the other members of the troop. So Hodonín Zoo decided to help the apes regain their natural behaviour as part of a unique project. Working with their partners in this project, the zoo installed video projectors showing authentic clips of apes living in the wild. These videos, which run for an average of four hours per day, aim to help the chimpanzees reacquire habits they have forgotten during their lives in captivity.

“We were inspired by a study in which scientists monitored the response of gorillas to projected images of other gorillas,” explained zoo director Martin Krug, the originator of the idea, which is without precedent in Europe.

“In some cases the result was love at first sight. This current project at the zoo consists in showing videos to our chimps. We expect that our animals will attempt to imitate the behaviour of the animals they see in the clips and that this will shape their roles within the group. In collaboration with Komensky University of Bratislava, we will then use the results of our observation of the animals’ responses for research purposes. I’m delighted that we have succeeded in finding appropriate partners for this project in Epson and BajtServis, and I’m hopeful that with their assistance we will see new baby chimpanzees here at the zoo before long.”
 

Sadly, the number of common chimpanzees has been falling rapidly in recent years. These chimpanzees live separated from the other subspecies in the rainforests south of the river Congo in the western tip of Africa. As their natural habitats decline, so too does their population. Their total number has been estimated to be as low as 10,000. Should this remaining population be hit with any kind of epidemic, the animals could become extinct within weeks. Zoos all around the world are attempting to find ways of preserving this subspecies for future generations. Having a sufficient number of genetically pure common chimpanzees bred in captivity would go some way to creating a genetic reservoir of the animals, who could then be returned to the wild.

Hodonín Zoo is one of only two zoos in the Czech Republic that are able to breed this pure line of the Upper Guinean common chimpanzee. Sherley belongs to this specific subspecies and, as such, would be an ideal candidate to father a line of offspring, but, despite his age, he does not seem to be interested in fatherhood.

“Sherley is more interested in discovering how to open bottles or how to dig out treats from the artificial termite mound than he is in the females,” the zoo director comments. Krug thinks that Sherley would act differently if he could interact with and be inspired by other male chimps, but this is almost impossible to achieve under the circumstances in which zoos operate. This is where the technology from Epson comes in, aiming to at least partially imitate for the Hodonín chimps the life of a troop in the wild.

“This is the first time I’ve encountered a project in which our technology could genuinely contribute to the preservation of an animal species,” says Pavel Dvořáček, Epson's Business Account Manager. “The installation of our projectors in the chimpanzees’ enclosures is revolutionary not only in terms of us being able to study the animals but also from the point of view of the use our products can be put to.”

“When selecting the right projector, high image quality was paramount,” explains Aleš Zezula, owner of the company BajtServis which installed the equipment at the zoo. “The chimps should get the impression that what they are seeing projected is the real thing. As we wanted our visitors to the primate enclosure to be able to enjoy the video projection as well, the only solution was background projection.

“Of all the makes and models we saw, it was the Epson projectors that best met our requirements becuase of their 3LCD technology. This technology ensures that the colours of the projected image are vivid and natural. In addition, the model we chose, Epson's EB-1955, is powerful enough to operate even in daylight,” Zezula adds.

As a youngster, Sherley was the pet of his circus, where he even picked up nursery rhymes about cooking porridge, but in terms of learning how to act as a male chimp, he has completely forgotten that. With his human keepers, Sherley can even play a game pointing at his eyes, ears and nose. Hodonín Zoo became his new home when he was nine. The keepers still remember his arrival, as he strutted along dressed in a t-shirt and trousers, holding his escort by the hand. But he has grown up fully since then and his strength could now be dangerous to those around him. Sherley did once live in the wild, until he was captured by hunters and sold for a hefty reward. But there is a chance his story could have a happy ending. His genes could help breed offspring that could be returned to the wild in future and thus help preserve this remarkable species.