....Baby gibbons snatched from zoo....

July 16th, 2009 •

FREJUS (France) – THIEVES broke into a French zoo and snatched year-old twin baby gibbons after throwing their mother into the moat around their island home, the site’s manager said on Thursday.

Keepers at the Frejus Zoological Park discovered what had happened on Tuesday morning after finding the female ape, 15-year-old Micha, soaking wet and in distress.

‘She was distraught,’ zoo director Guy Mascheffa told AFP after making a formal police complaint. ‘The babies are in danger of dying because any change in their diet can be fatal and provoke serious diarrhoea.’

The missing gibbons weigh 1,800 grams each and have not yet been named. A competition was to have been held next month for local school children to name them.

Gibbons are native to the jungles of southeast Asia and are endangered in the wild. If they survive, the babies could be sold to a wealthy but unscrupulous collector, keepers said. — AFP