Mr. Mootnick wrote dozens of scholarly papers for peer-reviewed publications, including the International Journal of Primatology. His recent articles illuminated the world’s rarest gibbon species — the crested gibbon of China and the silvery gibbon of Java — according to Lori K. Sheeran, professor of anthropology and director of Central Washington University’s primate behavior and ecology program.
Mr. Mootnick offered advice to U.S. zoos, veterinarians, gibbon rescue centers, government agencies and staff members at primate facilities in other countries.
Craig Stanford, a professor of biological sciences and anthropology at the University of Southern California who traveled to Asia with Mr. Mootnick in 2005 on a gibbon consulting trip, said Mr. Mootnick sometimes felt insecure in the presence of primatologists who had academic degrees and titles.
“In the end, the best testament to them was that he did succeed in becoming a world authority on these animals, without having the formal training,” Stanford said. And “he filled a niche that no one else really occupied in the field of conservation.”
An eccentric and soft-spoken man known for his gray-spotted beard, love of suspenders and dry sense of humor, Alan Richard Mootnick was born Jan. 23, 1951, and grew up in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley.
His father was an accountant and his mother assisted with his father’s work. Both parents died when Mr. Mootnick was a teenager.
His formal education consisted of a high school diploma and a two-year course in dental technology at Los Angeles City College.
He loved to work with his hands and in the 1970s took up welding. In 1980, he started a painting and remodeling business. But Mr. Mootnick’s true passion was primates.
The interest stemmed from his fascination with the fictional character Tarzan. The sound of a gibbon “singing” at a zoo captivated him when he was 9.
“I also identified with them,” Mr. Mootnick told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. “I saw similarities in myself. I was lean, and agile, and comical.”
In 1976, Mr. Mootnick acquired his first ape, Spanky; she had been someone’s pet. Two years later he got Chan Chan, on loan from a Rhode Island zoo as a breeding partner. Proceeds from his remodeling business and the sale of a classic Jaguar car collection funded the 1980 purchase of the five-acre Bouquet Canyon site of the gibbon center.
Today, 44 apes live in hand-built enclosures and are fed customized nutritional supplements, according to staff at the facility.
Survivors include a sister.
— Los Angeles Times
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