DUBLIN ZOO’S LONGEST-STANDING resident, a chimpanzee called Betty, has died at the grand old age of 62.

The zoo said she had been suffering due to “age-related conditions” including chronic arthritis and declining kidney function, leading to the difficult decision “to euthanise Betty to ensure she avoided any future discomfort”.

Betty, a West African chimpanzee who arrived in Dublin in May 1964, had been under the constant supervision of Dublin Zoo’s veterinary and animal care teams to manage her health.

“There will never be another like Betty, and she will be missed dearly by everyone here in Dublin Zoo as well as the many generations of visitors who were fortunate to know her.”https://t.co/6E0bzw5Vzz pic.twitter.com/XGbG39s7aE

— Dublin Zoo (@DublinZoo) July 23, 2024

Dublin Zoo team leader Helen Clarke-Bennett, who first encountered Betty as a child in the 1970s, described her as “always strong-minded” and “persistent” during her time in the zoo.

“While I’m incredibly sad to say goodbye to a companion I’ve had since childhood, I’m confident that euthanising Betty was the correct decision, ensuring she didn’t suffer unnecessarily and allowing her to keep her dignity to the very end. I take huge comfort in that,” Clarke-Bennett said in a tribute posted on the zoo’s website.

There will never be another like Betty, and she will be missed dearly by everyone here in Dublin Zoo as well as the many generations of visitors who were fortunate to know her.

Clarke-Bennett, whose father Michael Clarke looked after the chimpanzees in the zoo in the 1970s, said the zoo was a very different place when Betty first arrived 60 years ago.

It followed the style of the “early Victorian era zoos” and would have Betty and her companions participate in ‘Chimp Tea Parties’, which Clarke-Bennett said was a “relic of the bygone times”.

As the zoo modernised, the chimps went from being housed in the ‘pit’, a concrete enclosure with metal bars for the animals to climb on, with “little to stimulate the chimps” other than visitor interaction.

In the mid-1990s, Betty moved with her troop to the current macaque island, where she experienced natural terrain and trees for the first time. Clarke-Bennett said Betty “thrived” later when she had her first experience of socialising within a multi-male/multi-female troop.

“She was a big female and when a male had her support he could depend on her entirely,” the zookeeper said.

Betty arrived at the zoo along another chimpanzee called Wendy. The two were “inseparable” all the way up to Wendy’s death in 2014.

“While Wendy had a cheeky side, Betty was well able to keep her honest,” Clarke-Bennett remembered.

“One of my favourite images will always be that of Betty putting her arm around Wendy to encourage her to go outside with the rest of the troop, when Wendy was stubbornly refusing to leave while the habitat was cleaned.”