Baby monkey Named in Honour of Incredible Volunteer

Shaldon Wildlife Trust have celebrated one of their incredible volunteers, who recently passed away, by naming a baby titi monkey after him.

Nigel Edwards had volunteered at Shaldon Wildlife Trust for over 20 years and for the past 2 decades Nigel welcomed visitors into the zoo at our front desk, turning up armed with a box of chocolates every Saturday morning (without fail!) to keep the rest of the volunteers going. In those 20 years Nigel served tens if not hundreds of thousands of visitors to the zoo. Unfortunately, Nigel passed away suddenly in May.

As one most long-standing and beloved volunteers it only felt right that Nigel’s legacy lives on and our baby titi monkey, born in January 2024 needed a name. Born to Cupid and Joey, their eighth offspring, the new red titi monkey is yet another important addition to the captive breeding population for this species.

Zak Showell, Director of Shaldon Wildlife Trust said “Given the years of dedication to the charity the least we could do is name one of our baby animals after Nigel. Nigel was also an incredibly keen and apt horticulturist, and we will be planting a camelia, one of his favourite plants, in the zoo in his honour soon.”