Nick Knowles opens Realm of the Red Ape at Chester Zoo

On June 30th Chester Zoo's newest exhibit The Realm of the Red Ape - Europe's largest orang-utan enclosure - will be officially opened by television presenter Nick Knowles.

A new home for the critically endangered Sumatran and Bornean orang-utans, the opening will mark the end of two years' work developing the old enclosures into a state-of-the-art tropical home for the the great apes along with a number of other Indonesian forest animals including reptiles, birds and mammals. With some 2,000 plants in the enclosure, every effort has been made for the orang-utans' new home to simulate a natural environment.

In the wild these magnificent animals are on the critically endangered list. As Mark Pilgrim, Director of Conservation and Education at Chester Zoo puts it: "At the current rate of decline, wild orang-utans will be extinct in 10 to 20 years time."

The state of the orang-utan's natural habitat is one all too familiar to Nick Knowles after he took a recent trip to Borneo and came face-to-face with orang-utans for the BBC's Saving Planet Earth series. Nick Knowles feels that "breeding programmes and the work being done at Chester Zoo become more important every day."

Joining Nick Knowles at the official opening of Realm of the Red Ape will be Dr Birute Galdikas. Dr Galdikas is president of the Los Angeles-based Orangutan Foundation International and will be presented with a Gold Medal from the North of England Zoological Association - the charitable trust that runs the Zoo - to mark his tireless work on primate conservation and field research.

Chester Zoo has housed orang-utans since the late 1950's and is home to over 500 species of fascinating animals, providing a great day out for all the family. For your tickets and a low cost family break, book your tickets today with Chester Zoo Holidays.