Grieving chimpanzee carries dead baby to Spanish zoo for months

Valencia: Visitors to the Bioparc zoo in the Spanish city of Valencia over the past three months have been greeted with the moving sight of a grieving chimpanzee carrying around its dead baby.

The monkey named Natalia lost her child when he was just a few days old. Since then she has clung to the lifeless body and doesn’t seem to want to part.

“This behavior has already been observed in chimpanzees, not only in zoos but also in the wild,” said Miguel Casares, the head of Bioparc, Reuters.

Chimpanzees may grieve the deaths of loved ones like humans, but it is unusual for this process to be so severe or so drawn out. Nevertheless, says Casares, it must be respected, just like with humans.

“Our visitors, who are initially quite shocked at the sight of a dead baby, understand once we explain to them why we left it behind and why we are keeping it under observation.”

Natalia had already lost one of her offspring in 2018, so this time she was being watched closely.

Chimpanzees are among the most endangered primates in Africa, where a wild population of 1,00,000 to 2,00,000 animals suffers from hunting, habitat loss and disease.