Gibbons Snatched From Wild Find They Have Some Friends in Thailand : Wildlife: The apes are prime targets of poachers, who kill mothers and sell infants as pets. An unusual program aims to return them to the jungle.

“Vernon” used to hang around Nina’s Bar in funny clothes to attract customers. “Bo” was ripped away from his slain mother as a baby. “King Kong” tried to make friends with a rubber-tapper and got stabbed in return.

The three are among thousands of gibbons--highly intelligent, sensitive and appealing animals--variously victimized by man. They’re going through an unusual program that may allow them to return to their own world.

“Every gibbon here has suffered a trauma,” said Terrance Dillon Morin, an American zoologist and documentary filmmaker who heads the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project on this tropical island off southwestern Thailand.

Highly sought after as pets and fetching a high price on the illegal international wildlife market, gibbons are prime targets for poachers, who kill the mothers to grab their infants.

Many are cruelly kept in small cages or on short chains. On reaching maturity, the apes are frequently abandoned if they turn aggressive. Others are coddled and literally loved to death because they’re unable to cope outside their human habitat.

Although paraded around one of many bars in Phuket which once kept gibbons, Vernon was well treated by a woman who turned him over to the project.

“The trouble was that Vernon thought he was human. It took us a long time to convince him that he was indeed a gibbon,” said Morin. “He had not been with his own kind since not long after birth.”

Given land in a wildlife sanctuary by the Thai government, Morin installed large cages on a forested hillside. Proper food, medical help and exercise help restore the gibbons’ lost muscle tone and incredible acrobatic skills, while the caring keepers try to heal psychic wounds.

“We have to take them back to their childhood so they can learn to play and sing their songs,” said the 51-year-old director. “Here in the forest they get reintroduced to the smells and sounds of the jungle. We hope it triggers some primal memories.”

Morin is taking care of 27 gibbons at Phuket and five on Ko Boi, a remote, uninhabited nearby island where animals regarded as fit are released into the wild. A pair recently set free has begun to mate.

“I run a gibbon dating service,” joked Morin, noting that he must try to figure out who will be attracted to whom. Gibbons take their time courting and remain faithful partners for life.

“I hope that in seven months we’ll have a baby gibbon. That’s the ultimate success,” said Morin, a Honolulu resident who started the project three years ago after seeing the plight of Phuket’s captive gibbons.

He joined up with Leonie Vejjajiva, a British woman residing in Bangkok who has championed gibbons since the mid-1980s and started the Wild Animal Rescue Foundation of Thailand.

She cares for 59 primates, 30 of them gibbons, in her back garden. Vejjajiva says there are about 400 gibbons on the waiting list for her “halfway house,” with perhaps several thousand others being kept in Bangkok alone.

They will soon be moved to a plot of government land in a nearby province and eventually to wildlife sanctuaries to restock dramatically depleted wild populations.

Both Vejjajiva and Morin see some hope in Thailand. Hunting appears to have decreased, and a 1992 law says all owners must register their animals. But more gibbons, along with other wildlife, have been smuggled into the country from Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos.

On Phuket, the project has drawn support from the local community. Gibbons have all but disappeared from the bars. Fewer tourists seem to be buying baby gibbons or trying to smuggle them out of the country.

On one recent morning, a steady stream of foreigners and Thais visited the project, donating cash, buying T-shirts and learning about gibbons.

“Boy” and “Bruce” hugged each other like human sweethearts after coming out of sedation for a medical exam. In the “kindergarten” cage, youngsters played tag.

A German-Italian couple pulled up with “Olivia,” a 6-year-old female with golden brown hair they had come to turn over. They had bought her for $140, but she suffered from bouts of depression.

Olivia swung atop the counter while Morin wrote up her history and habits. “She loves children. She likes to hug them,” her owner explained. “But she doesn’t like Thai people because they tease gibbons. Gibbons have long memories.”

Suddenly, out of the forest, came the Great Call, the haunting song sung only by the female of the species. It began on a confident note but then began to falter.

“That’s Pepsi. She’s a youngster and doesn’t know her lines yet,” Morin quipped. “But she’s learning.”