Interview With Alan Mootnick – Director, Gibbon Conservation Center, Santa Clarita

(Update 4th November 2011.  We were very sorry to hear of Alan’s death earlier today.  A fantastic guy and unmatched friend of gibbons.  Rest in peace Alan.)

What better way to spend Christmas than in the company of your favourite gibbons?   That’s exactly what my wife Erin and I did on the 26th December 2008, when we made our second visit to the Gibbon Conservation Center at Santa Clarita, California – home to some of the world’s rarest gibbons.

As well as catching up with gibbon families we first encountered in September, and described in this earlier post,  I made some sound recordings during this visit, including an extended interview with the Founder and Director of the Center, Alan Mootnick.

I hope you’ll  find the resulting podcast, which you can stream or download below, gives an in-depth, candid, yet often humorous insight  into the mission of the Gibbon Center, the plight of the gibbon, and the work of a dedicated scientist and hands-on conservationist.

(Please note, a later edit with the interview split down into six shorter sections can be found here)

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60Mb. Approx. 1 hour. Copyright, all rights reserved, 2009, Tim Jones  communicatescience.com

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Alan Mootnick, Director Gibbon Conservation Center
Alan Mootnick, Director Gibbon Conservation Center

If you enjoyed hearing about – and hearing ! – the gibbons of Santa Clarita, and would like to make a donation, you can do so here.

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