Apenheul is de enige dierentuin waar apen op deze schaal vrij tussen de bomen en de bezoekers leven.
Aanvankelijk was het aantal soorten beperkt tot wolapen, slingerapen en een paar kleinere soorten.
In de wintermaanden is Apenheul gesloten voor bezoekers, met uitzondering van de houders van een ledenpas, deze kunnen op de speciale winterzondagen alsnog het park bezoeken.
Apenheul Primate Park opened in 1971 as a small primate park with a revolutionary concept: to allow the monkeys freedom of movement and allow them to mingle with the visitors.
Since 1979 no less than 35 gorillababy’s were born and raised in the Apenheul gorillatroop that nowadays counts 18 animals and is one of the largest and most natural social haremtroops in the zoo-world.
Apenheul is a member of the Dutch- (NVD, http://www.nvdzoos.nl), European- (EAZA, http://www.eaza.net) and Worldwide Federation of Zoos (WAZA, http://www.wzo.org) and plays an important role in the international breedingprogrammes for gorilla’s, bonobo’s, woolly monkeys and many other endangered primate species.
Dat was reden voor Apenheul om uit te breiden en langzamerhand meer verschillende apensoorten te gaan houden.
In 1995 begon Apenheul met een grote vernieuwing en uitbreiding van het park.
Apenheul steunt projecten in Azie, Zuid Amerika en Afrika door geld te geven zodat de regenwouden minder worden gekapt en de apen kunnen blijven leven in de regenwouden.
However, during holidaystime, Apenheul welcomes the largest amount of visitors and the monkeys tend to stay away from the visitors, because it is too busy for them.
Apenheul went live with this solution during a holiday -period and collected all visitor movements throughout the park.
For Apenheul this has enabled them to commence redesigning the park to providing an enhenaced experience for both the primates and visitors.
We decided to find some people that could tell us, so we asked some guys that were selling and repairing bikes.
When we tried to act normal and walk into the park, some madman in a green apenheul jacket stopped us and wanted me to put my stuff into ape-free bags, special bags that apes shouldn't be able to open.
Also he told me to put my sunglasses away, and I figured i didn't have any stuff on me that wouldn't fit in my pockets, so we decided to put it in a locker.
