Crowds Say Farewell to Zoo’s Golden Monkeys

The monkey house was cool, dark and quiet on Friday afternoon. The only sounds were the wind rustling the palm fronds on trees behind the building and the tinkling of a nearby fountain. Min-Min and Rong-Rong, two rare Chinese golden monkeys on loan from the Chengdu Zoo in the Szechwan province of China, napped at the top of a mammoth tan jungle gym in their glass enclosure.

Then the crowds came.

“Why they don’t wanna play?” asked Marshaun Tucker, age 5, as he swung on the monkey house railing and his fellow kindergarten classmates swarmed into the exhibit to catch a glimpse of the snoozing primates.

“They’re napping,” whispered Erma Baker, teacher’s aide to the Washington Elementary School class from El Centro.

“I love those monkeys ‘cause they’re Chinese, and my teacher, Mrs. Quan, is Chinese,” lisped 5-year-old Felicia Buffington through gaping teeth. “My daddy pulled my two front teeth for me, and this one’s loose, too,” she said, wiggling one of her few remaining cuspids for the benefit of monkeys, classmates and anyone else who might be interested at the San Diego Zoo.

But the monkeys napped on, oblivious to the hordes of well-wishers big and small, who came to say goodby during the primates’ final week in San Diego.

On Wednesday, Min-Min and Rong-Rong’s historic appearance here will end. On Friday they will fly back to their home in Chengdu, along with an entourage of 11 Chinese wildlife experts, one keeper and one veterinarian.

When the monkey couple arrived at the San Diego Zoo in November, it was the first time one of the rare golden monkeys, Rhinopithecus roxellanae, had ever been outside Asia. But the blond-haired, blue-faced primates were not just here for a visit. Min-Min and Rong-Rong came to the United States on a mission: to help save their endangered neighbors, the giant pandas.

“We negotiated for two or three years with the Chinese to exhibit the golden monkeys as a means of calling

attention to the plight of the giant pandas, which are starving to death because of a bamboo shortage,” said Jeff Jouett, zoo spokesman.

“Originally the Chinese had hoped we’d charge $1 apiece for people to get in to the golden monkey exhibit, but we thought the extra dollar--on top of the existing entrance fees--would discourage people from seeing the golden monkeys.”

As a compromise, the San Diego Zoological Society agreed to donate $150,000 to the China Wildlife Conservation Assn. in return for the monkeys’ five-month loan. Jouett said that $110,000 was sent to the association two weeks after the monkey exhibit opened on Nov. 21.

Two donation boxes, bearing a panda logo and a plea for help, have been stationed in the monkey exhibit, and Jouett said the boxes have netted $35,304 to help feed the endangered giant pandas. An additional $1,000 in donations has been mailed to the zoo since the April 9 nationwide showing of “The Bamboo Bear,” a cable television program about the pandas’ plight.

“We just wanted to show the Chinese people that pandas have popular support, and allow people who are interested in the plight of the pandas to make a donation,” Jouett said.

But the monkeys have helped the San Diego Zoo almost as much as they are helping their Chinese mountain neighbors. Jouett said that zoo attendance has increased nearly 8% during their exhibition here. From November, 1984, until the end of April, 1,254,755 people visited the Balboa Park zoo, an increase from 1,165,755 for the same period the year before.

In addition, scientists at the zoo were able to study the animals’ behavior--a first for Western scientists, Jouett said.

“The research department was thrilled,” he said. “It’s the first time any of these monkeys have been out of Asia, and the first time any Western scientists have been able to make any observations of them. It is really a privilege to have them here. They’re rarely seen in the wilds, and few of the zoos in China have them.”

Chinese golden monkeys were first seen by Westerners in 1868, when Pere Armand David, a French missionary to China, shot three of the rare and gentle creatures and sent their skins to the Natural History Museum in Paris. Theodore Roosevelt, on a 1929 hunting trip, killed nine, which were subsequently sent to the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History.

These primates live alongside the giant pandas in the high mountain forests of central and western China. Both are considered endangered species. Chinese zoologists estimate that 10,000 to 13,000 golden monkeys remain in the wild, while the number of giant pandas has dwindled to about 1,000.

Maxine and Everett Parrish knew they had only a few days left to bring their grandson, Robbie, to San Diego to say, “tsai chie” or “joy jen”--goodby in Chinese--to Min-Min and Rong-Rong.

“We saw them in January,” Maxine said, “and we wanted to bring Robbie down and see them before they went away.”

Although Robbie, 6, was more impressed with the anteater--”He stuck out his big, long tongue!”--he was happy to get to play hooky from school for a trip to see the golden monkeys.

“We figure he’s getting more education today than he would be if we left him in school,” said Everett.