Urban jungle threatens the peace of the rare gibbons of Saugus

When Chloe the gibbon and her mate Ivan hear trucks rumbling along nearby streets and helicopters clacking overhead, they dart and leap erratically. Betty, Truman, Sasha and Tuk soon join the frenzy, along with 28 other apes.

But the residents at the http://hhtp:// www.gibboncenter.org/ “> www.gibboncenter.org/ aren’t just monkeying around.

“It’s a stressful situation for them,” said Alan Mootnick, founder of the nonprofit center just outside Santa Clarita. “They don’t know which direction to turn. It’s like they’re trying to get away.”

It’s also distressing to Mootnick, a soft-spoken, self-taught expert on gibbons who has won praise from zoologists and has published dozens of scholarly papers in peer-reviewed publications, such as the International Journal of Primatology.

Professional primatologists say the center is home to the largest and rarest group of gibbons in the Western Hemisphere. The collection includes Hylobates gibbons, the only nonhuman primates to naturally walk on two limbs and often have a white ring of fur around their faces; tailless Symphalangus, which have two fingers on each hand fused together; hoolock gibbons, distinguished by their bushy white eyebrows; and Nomascus, which have fluffy, light-colored cheeks that resemble sideburns.

But now, encroaching urban development is threatening the health and well-being of the gibbons from Southeast Asia, Mootnick said. He is trying to raise funds to relocate the zoo-like facility that he founded in 1976 in then-sparsely populated Bouquet Canyon.

Less than 500 feet from the center’s front gate, work has begun on the first phase of a $1.8-billion Southern California Edison project to tap wind power and eventually deliver 4,500 megawatts of renewable power to California’s grid.

Don Johnson, the project manager, said he was not aware of the proximity of the Edison effort to the gibbon center, but the company had sent notices to area residents warning of possible noise and disruption, and so far there had been “no inquires or complaints.”

In addition, Bouquet Canyon Land Fund Eight has applied to Los Angeles County to build 334 single-family homes on about 500 acres neighboring the center.

Mootnick fears the worst if this project is allowed to proceed.

“It will stress them out, the sounds of the bulldozers and machines,” Mootnick said.

Accompanying the din is the threat of valley fever, a deadly soil fungus spread through the air when the earth is disrupted. Mootnick said the infection makes it hard for gibbons to breathe, and two years ago, an ape named Chester died from valley fever.

Being constantly exposed to loud noise can also cause reproductive problems in female gibbons, causing them to abort, said Lori Sheeran, a primatologist at Central Washington University. At least one gibbon has aborted at the Saugus center in past years, Mootnick said.

As for gibbons being suitable suburban neighbors, Mootnick pointed out that residents would have to be tolerant of the cacophony of piercing hoots, shrill screams and booms that accompany each sunrise.

“It’s hard to know if they would want to wake up to gibbons singing,” said Mootnick. Kimberly Yu, project coordinator for Bouquet Canyon Land Fund Eight’s proposed housing development, declined to comment on the center.

As for Mootnick, his formal education consists of a diploma from Birmingham High School and a two-year course in dental technology at Los Angeles City College. Mootnick loved to work with his hands and in the 1970s took up welding. In 1980, he started a painting and remodeling business.

But his passion remained primates. The interest stemmed from his love of the fictional character Tarzan – a man raised by apes in the jungle. He became enchanted with gibbons the first time he heard them “singing” at a zoo, when he was around 9 years old.

“I also identified with them,” said Mootnick, who is 57 and single. “I saw similarities in myself. I was lean, and agile, and comical.”

In 1976, Mootnick acquired his first ape, Spanky. She had been someone’s pet. Two years later, he received Chan Chan on loan from the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, R.I., as a breeding partner.

Proceeds from his remodeling business and the sale of a classic Jaguar car collection funded the 1980 purchase of the five-acre Bouquet Canyon site.

Although the location, where Mootnick also lives in a converted machine shop, was ideal because of its isolation, he never intended it to be a permanent home for his primates. The weather in the canyon is too extreme for gibbons, with “summers too hot, winters too cold,” Mootnick said.

At least one gibbon has fainted from the heat in recent years, and they all become distinctly less active when a chill sets in, Mootnick said.

Mootnick wants to buy at least 50 acres in Ventura County, where the coastal climate is better suited to gibbons. He has been hosting fund-raising drives with the aim of securing $1 million to contribute to the expected $2.5-million to $4-million price tag of a new property. He hopes the eventual sale of the Saugus site will cover the outstanding costs.

The apes’ offspring have kept the center’s gibbon population thriving –there have been 25 births during a 10-year period at the facility, Mootnick said. He has also acquired new gibbons through exchanges with zoos as far away as Japan, Australia, France and Russia.

It costs around $150,000 a year to take care of the primates, Mootnick said. He said he forgoes a salary and relies on two staffers – only one of whom is paid – and an army of volunteers from schools, universities, churches and other groups.

Funds to run the nonprofit facility come from state grants, private donations, paid tours of the center and sales of merchandise, such as T-shirts and miniature stuffed toy gibbons.

Several businesses donate landscaping material, equipment and feed, and Mootnick also insists that payment he receives for lecturing at universities and other forums go to the center’s bank account.

Ardith Eudey, an Upland-based primate specialist with the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, stressed that the ideal solution to conserving gibbons is “to protect their natural habitat and make it possible for them to continue in the wild.” But she commended Mootnick’s efforts to understand the apes and share his knowledge about them.

“Alan does this valuable service,” said Sheeran, the Washington primatologist. “He is really the only spokesman for that group of apes.”

Topics he has written about in scholarly journals include “Hostile Presenting in Captive Gibbons” and “Sexual Behavior of Maternally Separated Gibbons.”

He has gained many insights into gibbon behavior–both serious and, well, odd. Gibbons raised by humans, with little or no contact with other gibbons, are likely to be afraid of their own kind, he said. Gibbons are prone to “moon” an onlooker if the stares – from a gibbon or human – make them uncomfortable. And if they’re very upset they’ll sometimes break wind in the direction of the presumed antagonist.

Gibbons can also be deceptive, sometimes hiding food from family members. It is a characteristic rarely seen in other nonhuman primates, Mootnick said.

“I’m learning something all the time,” he added. “I’m never bored.”

Specialists agree that Mootnick’s work has enriched the field.

“He is extremely dedicated and extremely knowledgeable,” said Craig Stanford, professor of anthropology and biological sciences at USC. “He is living proof that you don’t need a PhD to be a world-class expert on something.”

Ann.simmons@latimes.com