Lowland gorillas in Europe 2013

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However the Atlanta female is the only one in a zoo that has succesfully raised twins by herself, but untill now it goes fine, the girl is however a little bit smaller than the boy and is seen drinking a bit less.

The keepers have a weekly blog (in dutch) on Beleef het park
 
lintworm said:
However the Atlanta female is the only one in a zoo that has succesfully raised twins by herself, but untill now it goes fine, the girl is however a little bit smaller than the boy and is seen drinking a bit less.
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I guess for it for it to succeed, the twins need to be very well balanced in size & strength. If the girl falls behind, even just a little bit, the boy may 'take over' the mother more.
 
I went to see the gorillatwin again yesterday. I spoke with one of the keepers. He told me they both drink fine now. I could even see that the girl is stronger than the previous two times I was there. Mom's doing fine too. She can finally walk normal again. Before she used one arm to support the twins, but they hang on to her on their own now. She can even run I saw yesterday ;)

I also witnessed a 1/2 sister taking one of the twins. She's a 6 year old girl. The same keeper told me she did that too the day before. Yesterday she took the boy, a day earlier the girl. She even walked around with the boy, but only very short. Unfortunately I didn't have my video camera ready at that moment. The photos aren't that good, because it was so far away. Later that day she lied down next to N'Gayla again and started grabbing the hand of one of the twins (I did capture that on video, it's in the second video).

I uploaded 2 videos to my youtube account:
13 day old gorillatwin @Burgers' Zoo - YouTube
13 day old gorillatwin @Burgers' Zoo - YouTube
 
CindyNL said:
I also witnessed a 1/2 sister taking one of the twins. She's a 6 year old girl. The same keeper told me she did that too the day before. Yesterday she took the boy, a day earlier the girl. She even walked around with the boy, but only very short.
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Its sometimes normal behaviour for a much older baby, but not normally at this early age. Possibly N'Gayla is happy to relinquish one like that because she has the two. I am sure she would not have allowed another female to take her previous single babies from her at that age. I guess the keepers are constantly monitoring their welfare, obviously.
 
Banjoko (Zoo Heidelberg) was moved on July 3rd 2013 to ZooParc de Beauval, France.

Mah Mah (Howletts Wild Animal Park) was moved in July 2013 to Wuppertal.

N'Gayla's twin babies (Burgers Zoo) are named N'Hasa (male) and N'Kato (female)
 
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Gorillas Land said:
Mah Mah (Howletts Wild Animal Park) was moved in July 2013 to Wuppertal.
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With the two females sent to Belo Horizonte recently(one has since died) that is four females that have left their groups recently. This was unheard of in the earlier years of breeding, when they only ever let females go 'in exchange'.
 
Pertinax said:
With the two females sent to Belo Horizonte recently(one has since died) that is four females that have left their groups recently. This was unheard of in the earlier years of breeding, when they only ever let females go 'in exchange'.
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Supposing that the two females send to Belo Horizonte remained in the realm of The Aspinalls. So two females went to the EEP. That wil be in exchange.
Howletts is in the need for a socialised unrelated male, as the head of a group.
 
john said:
Supposing that the two females send to Belo Horizonte remained in the realm of The Aspinalls. So two females went to the EEP. That wil be in exchange.
Howletts is in the need for a socialised unrelated male, as the head of a group.
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Yes, I guess you are correct there. I heard the remaining female will stay at Belo Horizonte and a new male is going there from Loro Parc(Tenerife).

They do need an unrelated male at Howletts- their groups are getting more and more inter-related. If the two moves of females in the EEP are in the form of exchanges, perhaps it will be for a male from Givskud(Kipenzi?) and a (non-breeding) female from Wuppertal? But there has been no indication of this.
 
Nisha said:
Gorillas Land reporting today that male, Kumi from Chessington has now been shipped to Beauval to become the third member of the new batchelor group over there
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So presumably they will now try to get old female 'Baffia' back with the others at Chessington and so have a single group again.
 
Gorillas Land said:
N'Gayla's twin babies (Burgers Zoo) are named N'Hasa (male) and N'Kato (female)
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The names of the twins have been switched N'Kato is now the males name, as visitors found it to be more masculin and N'Hasa is now the females name, as this name would sound more feminin.

Anyhow not a very important switch, more important is that after 7 weeks they are both still doing great and many gorillas in the group do some baby sitting with one of the 2 babies, so the mother has only one baby instead of two...
 
Nisha said:
Edit: Some photos from our friends at Actuzoo of the completed enclosure
http://actuzoo.forumactif.com/t9057p340-zooparc-de-beauval-nouveaux-amenagements-en-2013
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Beauval male Gorilla enclosure- there are comments on that Forum about the appearance of the fake rock used at the back of this enclosure, which presents a tall and massive block appearance and presumably surrounds the facade of the indoor building as well. The island is pretty typical though. For my money though, whatever its appearance, its good they have created another facility for holding males.
 
Pertinax said:
So presumably they will now try to get old female 'Baffia' back with the others at Chessington and so have a single group again.
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Apparently they did just that. I'm in London now with a friend, and she visited Chessington the other day. She did not ID Baffia but a keeper listed her as part of the (now single) group.
 
Howletts news

I talked to Brian last Friday. Otana is still supposed to go to Melbourne, sooner or later. He now lives separately from his group [Kouillou], right opposite of them. - Loulou probably goes to Belo Horizonte, Brazil (as does Leon from Loro Parque, Tenerife). - Tamidol [Djanghou] might go to Kerkrade's GaiaPark. - Kibi from Lympne did not go to Gabon with the rest of Djala's group because she was pregnant then. Her daughter was born in early July. The two of them are now in with the other females (Baby Doll, Mouila, JuJu and Emmie).
 
Willard said:
Apparently they did just that. I'm in London now with a friend, and she visited Chessington the other day. She did not ID Baffia but a keeper listed her as part of the (now single) group.
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I imagine they got Baffia back in with the others almost the day 'Kumi' left. Having no relatives in the group she was the lowest ranker previously and tended to keep out of the way of the others.
 
Willard said:
Kibi from Lympne did not go to Gabon with the rest of Djala's group because she was pregnant then. Her daughter was born in early July. The two of them are now in with the other females (Baby Doll, Mouila, JuJu and Emmie).
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'Emmie' was also in Djala's group at Port Lympne but it was obvious this very humanised female wouldn't go to the Gabon. Interesting she is now in with the old females at Howletts. With a new baby, it will also now be some years before 'Kibi' can safely be transferred into a group with another male.

No news yet of which Gorillas will occupy Djala's old enclosure at PL?
 
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