At Talley we have several chimpanzees, most of whom were retired from biomedical research. One of the groups consists of four senior adults, one male and three females.

This is Stu. According to his records, he was born in 1961, making him 48 years old. A chimp's average life span is between 45-60 years. Stu is still very agile and climbed up this oak tree to get the banana that we'd hidden there.



Mona, the chimp in the next photo, is enjoying a frozen treat prepared for her by Mike, one of our caretakers. The treat is made of nuts, cereal, and some chopped fruit pieces, frozen in KoolAid. (Thanks, Mike!)



Mona was born in 1960 and can be a very demanding lady. In her mind, she is in charge and we humans are only here to serve her.  Mona knows some sign language and will sign to the caretakers "I love you" to encourage our compliance. Of course, we grant her every wish!

One of our smaller chimps is Andrea, who was born in 1972. Andrea loves to display, which is when chimps "show off" by pant-hooting and oftentimes throwing things around. When a chimp begins to display, all of their hair stands on end and they pant-hoot. This picture was taken at the beginning of one of Andrea's displays, which are pretty impressive, considering how small she is!



The last chimpanzee in this group is Ursula, who was born in 1973. We call her "Lady Ursula" because she is a very dignified chimp. She enjoys looking at herself in the Looky-Loo mirror that hangs in their enclosure and is always very dainty when getting her fruits and veggies.

Here's a picture of Ursula enjoying a big handful of bananas. The chimp in the background is Mona.

Welcome to our first blog from Talley Road. While the Leslie Road facility is open to the public, the 102-acres here are not. Therefore, we would like to use this blog to introduce you to the many wonderful animals that call Talley home. There are several different species here including chimpanzees and other non-human primates, tigers, leopards, bears and hoof stock.

I recently took this picture of Lex, our Arctic Fox. He was brought to the WAO after being found outside of an apartment complex here in San Antonio. He is now enjoying his new enclosure where he has room to run and plenty of hollow tree trunks to hide in and under. Foxes also love to dig so we needed to make sure he couldn't dig out. We put mesh on the ground and then covered it up with over a foot of dirt. So now he can dig to his heart's content!