By Halima Athumani

ENTEBBE, Uganda

Carers for Uganda’s oldest chimpanzee in captivity marked his 53rd birthday on Thursday as a way of highlighting the dangers faced by other primates in the wild.

The celebration at the Uganda Wildlife Education Center in Entebbe, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the capital Kampala, saw invited schoolchildren join Zakayo, now a little stooped with old age.

With the crowd singing Happy Birthday, Zakayo took three bites of a birthday cake before running back to call the 14 other primates to join in as they scrambled for the sweet food.

Dan Mirembe, primate keeper at the zoo, described Zakayo as an icon and father figure.

“He has made it easy for us to integrate new infants and juveniles of rescued chimps, except for Kiri the hermaphrodite,” he said.

Being the eldest, Zakayo is accorded respect among his peers and intervenes to settle disputes. “When he is calling for order, he walks bipedally while clapping his hands and screams. The rest immediately go quiet,” said Mirembe.

Zakayo -- reportedly named after a bodyguard of infamous former ruler Idi Amin -- was rescued in 1972 from Semliki National Park, Bundibugyo in Western Uganda and settled in Entebbe Zoo in 1976. Chimps in the wild can live for 40 or 50 years but longer if in captivity.

The Wildlife Center has been celebrating Zakayo’s birthday for about six years to highlight the plight and abuse of chimpanzees in the animal trade.

According to the World Wildlife Fund chimps have disappeared from four African countries already and face extinction in several others. Deforestation and hunting are blamed for their decline.