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CHIMPS ON THE LOOSE IN LONDON

Find 28 chimpanzees from London Bridge to Tower Bridge

For some free monkey business in London this summer, follow the Chimps are Family trail from London Bridge to Tower Bridge to find 28 bronze chimp sculptures.

From now until October, Londoners can head into a real-life urban jungle to enjoy the free, public exhibition by artists Gillie and Marc Schattner.

Each sculpture represents 18 of the different behaviours chimpanzees express, from happiness and grief to friendship and conflict and covers all ages, from newborn to elderly. The trail shows that humans have a good deal in common with our hairy relatives, as well as 99% of our DNA.

They will also be able to get up close to the primates and scan a QR code to learn more about each chimp, get information about conservation, donate funds or adopt one of the sculptures.

All of the money raised for this WWF-UK campaign will be used to save chimpanzees, because current estimates suggest that within three decades they could be extinct in the wild.

Artists Gillie and Marc explain: “We hope this exhibition will help people see the similarities between us and chimps. Just like humans, they laugh at funny things, get cross with one another, and have fantastic bonds of friendship.

“Despite our connection to them, chimpanzees are becoming endangered, and it is because of our actions. With our cities expanding rapidly, their habitat is being destroyed to make space for housing, agriculture, mines, and roads.

"Chimps struggle to find enough food, getting them into dangerous situations leading to human-wildlife conflict. They are also targets for hunters looking for bushmeat or babies for the illegal pet trade. And all these interactions with humans have left them sick, catching our diseases, the worst being Ebola. Ebola has killed hundreds and thousands of chimps since the 1980s.

“We hope that once people see how similar we really are, they will want to help protect them.”

WWF-UK’s Chimps are Family Trail runs until October from London Bridge to Tower Bridge