Patty and Molly introduction - chimpanzees

After a four month "training" process, by the staff at the Kansas City Zoo, involving a newborn chimpanzee and a 36 year old female (unrelated to the infant), the introduction took place. They were together permanently after this introduction.

You first see the doors between the two opening and Molly starts screaming. That was one of the the hardest moments of my life. We really bonded with this little one and it would have been hard to see her hurt, or worse, die. You can see Patty trying to comfort her from the very first moment. Patty kind of left her alone a bit yet still closely watched her every move. After a short while (10-15 minutes) Molly started crawling over toward Partty. Patty picks up an elephant stuffed animal and tried to gently "play" with Molly. After a bit, Molly calmed down to the point that Patty could groom her. After about (45 minutes (could have been longer but time just dragged on during that stressful time), all was calm and we were feeding Molly through the cage mesh. Patty just stayed in the middle of the enclosure and wasn't stressed by us feeding Molly.

The other chimpanzee video on this site shows a bit of the training that we did in order to get this female/infant ready for this introduction.