Lovestruck monkey is a noisy neighbour

Mar 9 2008 by Nick Brownlee, Sunday Sun

MEET Brian the gibbon . . . the monkey neighbour from hell.

Every morning at dawn his deafening whoops shatter the peace of scenic Bassenthwaite, Cumbria, and wake the neighbours three miles away.

Farmer David Taylor, 56, at first thought the noise was one of his cows in labour.

He said: “It comes echoing up from the bottom of the valley, and it’s a hell of a noise. It wakes me up before my alarm clock.

“When I first made inquiries about it I couldn’t believe it was coming from a monkey. If it was made by a human, you’d have the noise prevention people round straight away.

“Still, my job means I’m up early anyway and at this time of year there’s always plenty to be getting on with.”

Despite the racket, the rare white- handed gibbon has fans flocking from all over the world to visit him at Trotters World of Animals, where he lives with partner Sooty and their five children, Joe, Noel, Sally, Robin and Nobby.

Aged 45, he is thought to be the oldest of his species in the world. Hunted and traded for use in traditional medicine in their native South-East Asia, they rarely live beyond 25.

According to park manager Richard Robinson, Brian’s whoops are, in fact, a love song for Sooty.

He said: “In the wild, male gibbons make the extraordinary noise to signify their territory and keep interlopers away from their mate.

“Brian and Sooty have been together for more than 20 years, but he never tires of letting the world know she belongs to him.”

Gibbon whoops can reach up to 100 decibels . . . as loud as an aircraft’s engines on take-off.

Despite this, not everyone in the area is reaching for the earplugs in the morning.

Local resident Fran Foster said: “Some people have the dawn chorus, we have gibbon song. I find it a very soothing noise.”