Lowland gorillas in Europe 2010

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Boulas moves to Twycross

Silverback 'Boulas' moved from Belfast to Twycross early last week. He will live with the two older females Biddy and Bongo.

This will allow Belfast to concentrate on breeding from their younger male Gugas. Boulas did not produce any offspring at Belfast though he was the dominant male.

Boulas is a full brother of Oumbi, Twycross's other male. Both were born at Howletts and lived at Port Lympne previously.
 
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Basel gorillas.

Current ISIS listing for Basel is 2.3 animals.

By my reckoning there should still be 2.4. after the death of Kati and departure of mother/daughter Wima & Chelewa to Spain. The females remaining should be; Goma, Quarta, Faddama & Joas, unless another has died or moved elsewhere.

As the Gorillas are currently not on show in the Zoo, its harder to ascertain. Or is this just an(other) ISIS mistake?
 
Blackpool gorilla born

Baby Gorilla born 7th May at Blackpool, UK to f. Miliki & m.Bukavu.

Being mother-raised but sex not known yet. This is Blackpool's very first Gorilla birth ever.
 
According to the Basel Zoo website, 6 gorillas moved out of the ape house for the building work to start, so I'm guessing it's an ISIS mistake.
 
Frankfurt & Wuppertal Gorillas updates?

I've just seen some good photos of Frankfurt Gorillas on Flickr. Male 'Viatu' from Basel has rapidly developed into a fine young silverback.
After the bad start and fighting(and death of Ruby and baby), does anyone know if he is breeding with either Rebecca or Dian now? Some of the photos show them close together so presumably the group has now settled down?

Also, any similar news on the Wuppertal gorillas i.e. mating/ breeding by new male 'Vimoto'?
 
My interest in gorillas is fairly recent and inspired by having got to know Kumbuka at Paignton. I've had a quick look through this thread and couldn't find the answer to my questions:
What happens to male gorillas who aren't wanted for breeding?
Do they spend the rest of their lives in bachelor groups? How does this affect them?
 
Male groups.

The oldest European bachelor group is Loro Parc, Tenerife, which has a group of seven Silverback males. It was set up around 15 years ago in 1995 when they were mostly juvenile/blackbacks. Five of them have been together all the time since, two joined more recently. Most of them were handraised and there's very little chance of those EVER leaving this group. One male, 'Yuoande' who was mother -raised, did move to the Vallee de Singes in France where he is a breeding male with many offspring, but the spectacular 'Ivo', who also left this group some years ago to join Amsterdam's breeding group, and then transferred to Berlin has never bred.(he was a handraised male though)

Port Lympne's oldest group of males have been together almost as long, since about 1997. Five still live together as silverbacks but the sixth had to be permanently seperated after some fighting. They had a couple of other adult males which lived longterm in pairs as well. The five Silverbacks that live together are being sent to Rhenen Zoo in the autumn, to continue living as a male group. Its possible one or more could later leave to join a breeding group if a place becomes available somewhere in Europe.

The other bachelor groups in Europe are at;
Opole and Warsaw- Poland.
Schmiding-Austria
Beekes Bergen-Holland
La Boissiere-France
Valencia-Spain.

These are all smaller and more recent than Loro Parc or Port Lympne, so the members are rather younger, but its likely they will be permanent fixtures, at least for some of the most genetically well represented and/or handraised members. There's only so many places available for new breeding males, usually on the infrequent occassions when a male dies or a zoo sets up a new group.

What effect does longterm male grouping have? It depends on the individual animals, their background and the length of time involved. Oumbie at Twycross has demonstrated that even mother-raised males kept for a long time (in his case 10 years) in male-only groups can have a difficult time re-adapting to being with females.
 
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Thanks for that.
So some of the hand raised gorillas like those at Paignton could live their lives in completely female-free zones. As they are social animals, do they form bachelor groups in the wild? Presumably it would be unnatural for them to live alone?
 
Gigit said:
As they are social animals, do they form bachelor groups in the wild? Presumably it would be unnatural for them to live alone?
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That's the big issue...

Despite what the zoos say about males living in bachelor groups 'as they do in the wild' there isn't any proof! In fact Field Researchers on Lowland Gorillas have said that adolescent males that have left family groups do normally travel alone and tend to avoid each other wherever possible, and provide no evidence that they form male groups in the wild.

The only real evidence for a bachelor group was one case recorded by Diane Fossey in Mountain Gorillas and that may have been a very unusual situation where a group of related males of a group were left together after all the females died. Even they split up after a while.

So bachelor groups could be just an artificial situation of captivity- like Orangutan groups. Its been found they will usually live together okay, especially if put together when young so its become a very useful management tool.

There are approximately 45+ males living in the European bachelor groups(including Paignton & Port Lympne) and plenty more young males still living in their natal groups in Europe. Obviously only relatively few from such a large number are going to get the chance to join breeding groups at some time in the future..These will be the most genetically valuable ones. Some of the other humanised/badly socialised ones aren't really suitable for breeding anyway, but a lot of them would be if the opportunity was there. Its quite a problem really.
 
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Lifted from zoonaute this morning

Tamarilla gave birth last night to a small female . It is in great shape and everything seemed to go this time. It was the fifth little fellow who was born three years , it has long been that we had not seen it in France !

Source : Zooparc Beauval

Exclusive Zoonaute
 
kiang said:
Tamarilla gave birth last night to a small female
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Tamarilla is an ex Howletts female. They let them have two females, Tamarilla and Kabinda in 2005, to join their existing trio. The father would (presumably) be Asato, who was born at Jersey (Jambo's last offspring)- he went to Beauval as breeding male from the Paignton male group, after their first male 'Yangu' proved unsuccessful as a breeder. I think Yangu is still there and lives with one of the females seperately.
 
Death of Howletts female Founa.

Adult female gorilla 'Founa' died sometime recently- date or cause unknown- she was aged 39 approx. Founa arrived at Howletts in 1972 and grew up with young males Bitam & Etoumbie in the original run of cages, before later becoming one of the founder females in Kijo's (Howlett's first born Gorilla) breeding group.

Founa leaves two offspring by Kijo,- silverback male Kifu who has his own group, and female FouFou, a breeding female who lives in Djala's group at Port Lympne.
 
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Founa Died on 1st March 2010. She showed no sign of serious Illness until just hours before she died, the cause was bacterial peritonitis. She had a history of medical problems in connection with a prolapse she suffered following the birth of her last offspring.
 
Tinkywinky said:
Rebecca from Frankfurt suffered miscarried.
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Better luck next time for this experienced breeder. As she is the only breeding female Frankfurt now have, they really need one or two younger females to come into the group perhaps.
 
If Mpenzi's father was Knorke, then yes.
If Mpenzi's father was Bakala, then no.

Some listings show Knorke, others Bakala. Uncertainty as to which was really the father.
 
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