THE most comprehensive project to release chimpanzees into the wild has recorded a world first. One of the males has now successfully reproduced.
DNA analysis of hair from the infant – born to released female Choupette – showed that the father is a released male called Mekoutou. Benôit Goossens’s team at Cardiff University in Wales will report the success story in a future issue of Primates.
Mekoutou is one of 36 animals released into Conkouati-Douli National Park in the Republic of Congo between 1996 and 2001. He was originally brought to the project in 1991 when he was less than a…
