Zoo searches for monkeys for $7m cage

The Los Angeles Zoo may have America's only monkey lair approved by a feng shui expert. There's only one problem: No monkeys.

The city spent US$7.4 million building the China-themed primate enclosure – complete with canary island palm trees, artificial trees with extra springy limbs, and a viewing structure with Chinese-style tilework – after China promised to lend the zoo a trio of rare golden snub-nosed monkeys.

But now the Chinese government has taken the monkeys off the table, leaving zoo officials searching for suitable stand-in simians to take the place of the golden monkeys, known for their blue-faces and blond-hair.



Zoo spokesman Jason Jacobs said negotiations with Chinese officials broke down several weeks ago, but he did not know why. The Chinese official that had signed the agreement granting Los Angeles the monkeys has since left his position, he said.

The city agreed to pay the Chinese government US$100,000 a year for the monkeys. Officials voted in 2006 to build the enclosure designed to look like a rural Chinese village. The enclosure was finished in 2008.

A feng shui expert hired for US$4500 tweaked the final design with a water fountain and other features meant to promote the monkeys' health and happiness. Zoo officials are now consulting with their colleagues at other zoos to obtain native Chinese monkey species that will fit in with the surroundings.