Baby Called Shay Gibbon after Irish Goalkeeper

With less than a week to go to Euro 2012 fans of Fota Wildlife Park have chosen “Shay” as the name for its Baby Agile Gibbon in honour of Ireland’s Agile goalkeeper from Donegal.

The baby who has gone three months without a name had four possible name suggestions in the end with Robin, George, Mel and Shay. But it was the support of the boys in green with Shay rather that Night fever for the late Robin Gibb that won the public vote on the park’s Facebook page.

The baby who has gone three months without a name had four possible name suggestions in the end with Robin, George, Mel and Shay. But it was the support of the boys in green with Shay rather that Night fever for the late Robin Gibb that won the public vote on the park’s Facebook page.

Speaking about the name Stephen Ryan, Head of Marketing for Fota Wildlife Park said “we got over 100 name suggestions through our website and we narrowed it down to four in the end, we are delighted with the name Shay and hopefully he might bring some luck to the lads in Poland next week.” The Agile Gibbon who was born in March has been protected very closely by its mother Chloe and as a result the sex of the baby is still unknown therefore called it will be Shay or Shea which is a female character in the popular tv series the Game of Thrones.

Similar to the Lar and Siamang gibbon, agile gibbons inhabit monsoon and evergreen rainforests on islands and mainland of Southeast Asia. As their name suggests the agile gibbon is an excellent climber, it is also one of the fastest and most acrobatic moving of all the primates virtually flying from tree to tree in its forest home.

To celebrate the naming of the gibbon as Shay the park are putting on a special “support the boys in green” weekend in the park on June 9th & 10th with face painting, competitions and games on both days. Shay Given and the rest of the team will kick of the European Championships on Sunday against Croatia.