Melbourne Zoo Rigo the gorilla #2

Status
Not open for further replies.
Thanks for that, Pertinax.

Apparently, Julia has been in oestrus and has presented to Rigo who has shown little interest. Unfortunately, Motaba (who is isolated with his sons on the other side of the night dens) is showing interest and climbing up the poles.

That's all I know.....as i said there has been an ongoing animal watch with the gorillas since they were introduced but I'm not involved with that.
 
zookiah63 said:
Thanks for that, Pertinax.

Apparently, Julia has been in oestrus and has presented to Rigo who has shown little interest.
Click to expand...

Uh oh... that doesn't sound good....:( They may hope things will improve with time, but I'm dubious if he didn't respond the very first time.

But you'll be interested to know his grandson Mapema who recently joined females at Duisburg Zoo, Germany, has already been mating with the youngest one, Safiri... she came from Taronga Park.
 
Cool! I love Safiri, that is great news!!!!
 
Jo said:
Cool! I love Safiri, that is great news!!!!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I forgot she was at Adelaide too for a while...

Mapema certainly hasn't wasted time- hopefully there'll be a pregnancy before long too. I feel sure he will carry on Rigo's line as he had an entirely 'normal' background being mother-reared ( as was safiri). They think he'll mate another female too.
 
saw rigo today. he was relaxing in his cave whilst the females pottered around close by, foraging.

its quite clear to me he is not an anti-social or violent gorilla.

thus, i can only conclude that this was nothing more than a common excuse that the zoo used to justify their appaling treatment of this gorilla. are we supposed to be supprised him an yuska did not get alaong? after all, she may very well be his sister and even if their is no blood relation the two gorillas certainly grew up together as such. betsy was a good 10 years older than rigo. not supprised they didn't get along well either.

whats really make me mad is that the zoo had opions here. this was not a difficult decision, they were not in hard place. they had 4 females and two mature silverbacks.

bulluman/motaba could have led one group with yuska and betsy rigo could have led another with julia and g-anne. each troop could have rotated time in the rainforest exhibit and the other grotto could have been cheaply refurbed, be it even for non-display, to house the others.

instead rigo was not only denied company, but any access to the better enclosure as well. for FIFTEEN YEARS!!!!!

appalling. absolutley appalling.
 
patrick said:
its quite clear to me he is not an anti-social or violent gorilla.

instead rigo was not only denied company, but any access to the better enclosure as well. for FIFTEEN YEARS!!!!!

appalling. absolutley appalling.
Click to expand...

Remember the Rigo you see today is probably not the same animal who was seperated from the females all those years ago because they weren't getting along. Back then he was a typical young silverback, and at that age they're often bullish and aggressive and throw their weight about with females. A silverback isn't really mentally mature enough to lead a group until he's fifteen or more. But this earlier antisocial behaviour usually fades with age and of course Rigo is now a relatively old man in Gorilla terms and quite harmless.

That's not to say I disagree about his treatment over the years. I think you'll find he was segregated alone for AT LEAST 24 years- on my first visit in 1983 I didn't see Rigo as they were already apart then. The two groups idea would certainly have been feasible after they got the two extra females from Jersey-however Rigo may or may not have bred with them- his lack of interest now makes me wonder about that. Still, they could have tried it for a year or two. The situation is a little like 'Ivan' the 'shopping mall' gorilla in the USA- he was integrated into a group very late in his life at Atlanta Zoo and a female eventually encouraged him to mate too- but he didn't father any offspring. Will this be Rigo's story?- I hope not....
 
The signs are not encouraging indeed. If a silverback does not show interest in his female companions while they are in oestrus that does count for something.

The option of keeping to seperate gorilla troupes seems interesting. However, I would advocate both silverbacks are not in visual contact with oneanother to not instigate antagonistic behaviour and deflect from where silverbacks are there for in the first place, stability and siring offspring. :confused:
 
personally i don't think its safe to make ANY assumptions about rigo. the poor guy has never gotten a fair go as far as i'm concerned.

this gorilla was poached from the wild and thereafter only spent time with two females in all his captive life. one of these gorillas was raised with him from a young age and may indeed be a sibling. the other was much older than him and had grown up with another male.

in any case, its not fair to base assumptions on rigo's personality on the result of the only two relationships his ever had. i've heard all sorts of conflicting opinions over the years, including that the females used to gang up on him, not the other way around. in any event he was never fond of the shouting, pointing invasive public and was well know and a faeces thrower.

this strong personality has always been one of rigo's appeals to me, unfortunately it may not have helped his cause in the eyes of those that considered him as "anti-social"....

so for a gorilla who was unfairly denied any other chances at forging bonds, for a gorilla who was kept in appalling environment as a result (the fact that he was never allowed access to the rainforest exhibit was in my eyes disgusting) and for a gorilla who has now suddenly been thrown into a troop environment and has only been there for a couple of months - how can we honestly know what to expect?

its seems to me this gorilla has been judged an aweful lot since day one and never really been given a chance to prove himself.

(but speculate all you like guys, this isn't direceted negitively at you ;))
 
patrick said:
in any case, its not fair to base assumptions on rigo's personality on the result of the only two relationships his ever had. i've heard all sorts of conflicting opinions over the years, including that the females used to gang up on him, not the other way around.
(but speculate all you like guys, this isn't direceted negitively at you ;))
Click to expand...

Yes, that is classic behaviour for a relatively young male too. What happens(in captivity at least- possibly out of boredom and also in the past from unnaturally small groupings perhaps) is that the male knows he's stronger than the female(s) so he starts to tease or bully them sometimes, just to get a reaction.. They act frightened but if he really hurts(bites) them, they will turn on him, screaming and barking, and chase him off. I think often that's the reaction the male wants to get. I've seen this several times in different zoos. Nowadays with bigger groups in much better environments, its largely a thing of the past. I think that's all it was with Rigo too- just aggressive behaviour brought about by the situation..

As far as speculating about what will happen with Rigo and the females, yes, we can go on ad infinitum....(that's the interesting part) However a very experienced and skillfull Gorilla keeper once told me something I had always suspected- he said if you put strange gorillas together you can nearly always tell within a very short space of time( just a few weeks) how they are going to relate to each other in the longterm. In other words, their initial responses and reactions to each rarely change later on. That's why, on hearing that Rigo has ignored an ostrus female, I'm not very optimistic about his breeding potential I still hope though he will prove me wrong..;)

I agree- as Jelle says -that having the two silverbacks living within close proximity may not help- but I'm sure it won't have any effect on Rigo's behaviour and there's nothing that can be done about it anyway. I think in the longterm Melbourne may have to reassess their management strategy on the Gorillas anyway...
 
patrick said:
this strong personality has always been one of rigo's appeals to me, unfortunately it may not have helped his cause in the eyes of those that considered him as "anti-social"....
Click to expand...

I forgot to mention....

In the early days of captive Gorilla keeping, when the few zoos that had Gorillas had only a pair rather than a group, such 'anti-social' behaviour was in fact very common- in a 1.1. situation like that, the male can be a real tyrant toward a single female which has no other female 'back-up.'

The very first pair to breed in captivity(Columbus USA. 1956) couldn't be kept together as adults as they fought (the male was older and bigger and aggressive) yet it was discovered they could be put together when the female was in oestrus and then they would mate... The keeper actually went against the director's orders that on no account should they be risked together. He ran them together surrepticiously overnight when he noted the female was in oestrus (they were normally seperated by a grille through which they could touch and interact) After three months, she became pregnant. That is how Columbus bred the very first captive baby gorilla...

At Toledo Zoo(also USA), there was another pair which couldn't live together normally either because of the male's aggression, but when the female was in oestrus, they gave the male a drug(mixed in a drink) which prevented his aggression- so they could be placed together just for mating.The female immediately recognised he was 'spaced out' and temporarily lost her fear and allowed him to mate (they bred too). I'm surprised some other zoos didn't follow suit.

Even the very normal silverback 'Jambo' at Jersey Zoo (Motaba's father) didn't normally like one of his two original mates- N'Pongo had been handraised and didn't defer to his higher rank- yet they would still mate when Npongo was in oestrus. She had many offspring by him.

My point being..... that maybe if Melbourne had tried this with Rigo in the past- putting him with Yuska or Betsi sometimes but only when they showed signs of oestrus, there would have been better results all round, than just totally isolating him from the other Gorillas for all that time..
 
maybe...

and "company" issue is just a part of my issue with the managemnet of rigo. almost more importantly was the fact that not only was he alone, he was alone in an appalling unsuitable exhibit. and to satisfy the need to see lots of gorillas, he was never given access to the rainforest as far as i know. not once in all my years have i ever seen rigo on display in that exhibit. and that is a clear case of unneccesary cruelty in my opinion.
 
It is truly intriguing to note that several members on Zoobeat who are massive fans of Melbourne Zoo aren't afraid to criticize the establishment for the appalling treatment of Rigo the male silverback. Usually the baboon cage is what is under attack when it comes to this particular zoo, but Rigo's life in comparison to how he might have lived in the jungles of Africa is quite startling. Freedom snatched away, and then isolation for who knows how long...
 
Tell me about this baboon cage, for I haven't seen it for many years.
As I remember it is actually a 2 or 3 cages end to end, made of chain link and not too attractive.
But what sort of environment is it for the baboons?
Is it big enough?
Is it interesting for them?
Are they breeding in there?
Baboons are combative animals.Is their interaction normal or are they fighting excessively?

The answer to these questions would determine whether the enclosure is satisfactory.
Too many people think that if animals are confined by mesh, i.e. a cage, then they are living in "hell" but if they were living in the same area confined by glass or a moat, then that's O.K.(Anthropomorphism?)
 
In some instances for Primates, a 'cage' (however ugly) can be a more enriched environment than an open space or open area as the cage gives greater dimensions/area that they can use for climbing etc.

From memory Melbourne's Baboon cages are pretty basic and represent circa 1950's zoo-keeping- the strange thing is it wouldn't be a major undertaking to replace them with something better, unlike building new accomodation for elephants or gorillas. It just seems odd to me that such a fine zoo still has such an archaic exhibit...
 
snowleopard said:
It is truly intriguing to note that several members on Zoobeat who are massive fans of Melbourne Zoo aren't afraid to criticize the establishment for the appalling treatment of Rigo the male silverback.
Click to expand...

Rigo's situation has proved a real embarassment for Melbourne Zoo. I live in the Uk but having seen him at Melbourne on two different occassions, his solitary confinement has always saddened me. No matter how they try to explain it away he was alone for (I believe) at least 24 years(possibly more) in one of the original Ape Grottoes. During this time I don't think any further attempts were made to give him access to any of the females along the lines outlined above. So he should really have been sent to another group somewhere abroad- if they had looked hard and long enough over all that time(20+ years...) I'm sure they would eventually have found somewhere that could offer him companionship, despite their statements to the contrary.
 
Ara: the baboon cage is really just that, a wired enclosure with what I believe is a concerete floor. It is definitely not big enough for the large, breeding group of baboons that inhabit the exhibit, but there are a few logs and other accessories tossed around for their enrichment. When I visited Melbourne Zoo this year there were two keepers that tossed handfuls of food into the enclosure, and the baboons understandably reacted as any squabbling, shrieking group of monkeys would do. The chain link is not attractive for zoo visitors, and is made even worse after a visit to the opposite side of the zoo. One can go from lush, immersion exhibits to something that wouldn't look out of place in the worst Asian zoo within a couple of hours. The group of baboons at the Adelaide Zoo appeared much more relaxed (it is a smaller group) amongst the rocks, logs, and natural substrate of their enclosure.
 
patrick said:
not once in all my years have i ever seen rigo on display in that exhibit. and that is a clear case of unneccesary cruelty in my opinion.
Click to expand...

.... actually, I've refrained from mentioning this before as there isn't much that Melbourne can do at present BUT, Motaba is possibly now in an equally stressful situation as Rigo was previously... he can still see and hear his former group but can't reach them. Zookiah mentioned he was watching Julia when she was in oestrus, over the wall- very frustrating for a breeding silverback like him not to be able to mate with one of 'his' former females. Seeing them with another male may also be stressful for him too.
 
Is there a possibibility, that rigo sees motaba, and believs him still to be dominant male, and supressed buy him, equating in no interest. Do you think if the other males moved away, there would be an increase in mating activity or interest at least?
 
Zoo_Boy said:
Is there a possibibility, that rigo sees motaba, and believs him still to be dominant male, and supressed buy him, equating in no interest. Do you think if the other males moved away, there would be an increase in mating activity or interest at least?
Click to expand...

That's a very interesting idea, zooboy... I don't think Motaba's close proximity will have an effect on Rigo's behaviour as he must realise Motaba is 'out of reach'- quite likely he understands too that he's in the same enclosure he used to be in!

Its an interesting theory though....
 
Pertinax said:
Motaba is possibly now in an equally stressful situation as Rigo was previously...
Click to expand...

absolutely. the stress of being removed from his family is no doubt very difficult for him. again, this is another issue that could have been avoided if the zoo had refrained form acquiring another breeding silverback (when they already had two!).

again a better management strategy from the begining that accounted for the
welfare of ALL the zoos gorillas would have avoided the current situation with motaba also.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top