Accompanying the din is the threat of valley fever, a deadly soil fungus spread through the air when the earth is disrupted. Mootnick said that the infection makes it hard for gibbons to breathe and that two years ago, an ape named Chester died from valley fever.
Being constantly exposed to loud noise can also cause reproductive problems in female gibbons, causing them to abort, said Lori Sheeran, a primatologist at Central Washington University. At least one gibbon has aborted at the Saugus center in past years, Mootnick said.
As for gibbons being suitable suburban neighbors, Mootnick pointed out that human residents would have to be tolerant of the cacophony of piercing hoots, shrill screams and booms that accompany each sunrise.
"It's hard to know if they would want to wake up to gibbons singing," Mootnick said.
Kimberly Yu, project coordinator for Bouquet Canyon Land Fund Eight's proposed housing development, declined to comment on the center.
Mootnick's formal education consists of a diploma from Birmingham High School in Los Angeles 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 his passion remained primates. The interest stemmed from his love of the fictional character Tarzan, a man raised by apes in the jungle. He became enchanted with gibbons the first time he heard them "singing" at a zoo, when he was around 9.
"I also identified with them," said Mootnick, who is 57 and single. "I saw similarities in myself. I was lean, and agile, and comical."
In 1976, Mootnick acquired his first ape, Spanky. She had been someone's pet. Two years later, he received Chan Chan on loan from the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, R.I., 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.
Although the location, where Mootnick lives in a converted machine shop, was ideal because of its isolation, he never intended it to be a permanent home for his primates. The weather in the canyon is too extreme for gibbons, with "summers too hot, winters too cold," Mootnick said.
At least one gibbon has fainted from the heat in recent years, and they all become distinctly less active when a chill sets in, Mootnick said.
