A group of local children experienced a rare opportunity last weekend at the Santa Barbara Zoo, being among the first to witness the birth of a white-handed gibbon.

The white-handed gibbon parents, 25-year-old Mel and 20-year-old Chanee, welcomed their baby in their public exhibit at the Santa Barbara Zoo on Saturday, a month earlier than zookeepers expected.

“It was a surprise for us all,” senior zookeeper Heather Leith said.

It was definitely a shock to the group of young kids. 

Santa Barbara siblings Capri, Lucia and Luis Ibarra, and their Los Angeles cousin Addison Montiel, were at the zoo last weekend, looking at the white-handed gibbon exhibit, when they noticed something was unusual. 

“The black monkey was tossing and turning, and we just thought something was up,” 11-year-old Lucia told Noozhawk. “We thought it was sick.”

“Or itching its butt,” 5-year-old Luis added.

That movement was Chanee actively giving birth to her baby on the bridge of the habitat. 

“I saw the umbilical cord, and it was wrapped around the monkey’s leg,” 8-year-old Capri said. 

Capri said she “didn’t really know” how she knew to identify the umbilical cord.

“I just saw something white, and I thought that’s what it was,” she said.

After realizing Chanee was giving birth, Lucia and Luis ran to find a zoo employee to alert them to what was happening.

Their mom, Karina Carillo, said she was left in disbelief that her young kids seemed to know exactly what was happening.

“We never talked to them about any of this,” she said.

She credits her daughter Capri’s attendance at the zoo’s Early Explorers Preschool for teaching her about the animals. 

Carillo also said Mel, the male gibbon, quickly swung his way over to Chanee with a “pep in his step.”

Carillo said she noticed that Chanee ate her placenta. That behavior is normal, and mother gibbons do it so predators don’t smell anything, Leith said. 

Carillo said the people standing near the habitat began hugging each other after witnessing the gibbon birth, some tearful and joking that they were now all the baby’s godparents.

Zoo staff have yet to determine the baby gibbon’s sex and won’t be able to for another couple of weeks because the baby is clinging tightly to Chanee, Leith said.

A name also has yet to be selected.

The kids, however, think Mango would make the perfect name because it could work for a male or female, they told Noozhawk.

The Ibarra siblings met the Santa Barbara Zoo’s CEO and president, Charles Hopper, earlier this week and received small goodie bags and animal trading cards to mark the occasion. 

“What you saw was not just a birth, which is already rare to see, but the gibbons only give birth every three years,” Hopper told the three kids.

The new gibbon is Chanee’s third baby, Mel’s first and the Santa Barbara Zoo’s first gibbon birth in 20 years, according to zoo officials.

“She did everything correctly, and everything went smoothly,” Leith said.

Mel is also doing well and finding his bearings as a first-time dad, according to Leith. 

“Whenever the baby vocalizes, he’s always swinging over, making sure everything is OK,” she said.

While the kids got to witness a rare opportunity, giving birth in public view is not so rare for Chanee. As a mother of three, she previously gave birth in her habitat at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio. 

That behavior is different from gibbons living in the wild in Southeast Asia, where they live and give birth high up in trees, Leith added. 

Mel and Chanee arrived at the Santa Barbara Zoo in 2025 from Texas and Ohio, respectively, with a breeding recommendation through the Gibbon Species Survival Plan, a program managed by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums. 

White-handed gibbons are classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, according to zoo officials.

“They hit it off really well and were breeding a lot,” Leith said, chuckling. 

But staff were still unsure how Mel would react to a reproductive female, and Chanee had previously been on birth control.

In fact, Santa Barbara Zoo keepers were not 100% sure that Chanee was pregnant following negative and inconclusive pregnancy tests earlier this year. 

But certain behaviors and physical changes pointed to a likely possibility, according to Leith. 

Additionally, detecting a gibbon pregnancy, which lasts seven months, can be difficult, according to Leith. For other apes like chimps and gorillas, pregnancy can be confirmed with a human test, she added.

For Chanee, zookeepers had been collecting fecal samples to test her hormones while training her to allow staff to conduct an ultrasound on her, she added.

Now about a week old, the baby gibbon is spending time with its parents in their habitat at the zoo.

It will take it a month before the baby gets more hair, a stronger grip and a regular eating schedule, according to Leith. 

People can catch a glimpse of the family of three in their habitat at the Santa Barbara Zoo.