The Minnesota Zoo has had great success breeding this particular gibbon family. All of Archie and Edith s offspring, with the exception of Tia, are breeding at other zoos. Gibbons are a very family-oriented group, preferring to keep the population within their family unit. It s not like snow monkeys, where you can have several males and several females together, Trechsel said. We can only maintain a group about this size.
Gibbons are vegetarians and eat mostly vegetables, fruit, and leaves.
Zookeepers scatter fruit around the exhibit for the animals to hunt throughout the day. Gibbon Island is surrounded by water to prevent the gibbons from getting out. They hate water, said Trechsel. On rare occasions we have had them slip off the branches and into the water, but that s mostly the youngsters. We always have to be concerned because they might have inhaled water, but we ve never had any problems.