IPPL Founder Dr. Shirley McGreal created this sanctuary in 1977, four years after establishing IPPL while living in Thailand. The original property, where most of the gibbon enclosures are located, consists of about 10 acres of temperate South Carolina Lowcountry. 

A typical summer day at the IPPL sanctuary, by Marc Ellis.

In recent years, IPPL has added to its grounds by purchasing adjacent properties as they’ve come up for sale (12 forested acres of buffer land in 2004; five acres plus a large house in 2005; an additional three-acre parcel with a small house and mature trees on it in June 2010; and nearly six more acres in July 2011). As a result, IPPL now owns about 36 acres, and we have built more gibbon housing units on a couple of these newer properties. 

Because gibbons are naturally monogamous and territorial, each mature un-paired animal and each gibbon couple must have their own night quarters and connecting outdoor enclosure, separate from other gibbons. Unlike chimpanzees and gorillas, mature gibbons do not tolerate living in groups of unrelated adults, a situation that inevitably leads to fighting. This means that, for a sanctuary of our size, we have a large number of housing units to maintain. IPPL’s gibbon houses are hurricane-proofed and temperature-controlled, and our spacious outdoor gibbon areas are enriched with species-appropriate swinging ropes, hammocks, and climbing structures, which are well suited to the needs and interests these long-armed arboreal apes.

Our gibbons are pair-housed whenever possible. We do not breed our little apes, however, since any offspring would have no chance of being returned to the wild, so all our males have had vasectomies (although we’ve had some surprises in the past!). Any gibbons that must live alone for psychological or other reasons get special attention from their human friends, like extra grooming sessions and other enrichment.

Our wonderful animal caregivers feed the gibbons a varied diet consisting mainly of greens and fresh vegetables for breakfast (sometimes with some canned beans, scrambled eggs, or “monkey crunch” biscuits for an added protein boost), a delicious mixed-fruit salad for lunch, and a banana as a bedtime snack when the animals are brought indoors for the night. And every now and then, they’ll get a healthy treat, like frozen fruit smoothies, dried fruit, or peanuts in the shell.

Our gibbons are delighted when we feed them figs and muscadine grapes grown right on the IPPL grounds.

IPPL's main gibbon yard on a rare snowy morning