'N'Pongo' & 'Kumi' 1981

'Kumi' was born in the old Brian Park Gorilla Exhibit as 'N'Pongo' was heavily pregnant when the other gorillas were moved into the current gorilla exhibit. After the birth in June 1981, mother and infant were moved into the new enclosure, but kept away from the male 'Jambo'. This photo was taken in August 1981. Unfortunately in November, 'Jambo' broke through an imperfectly closed door, beat up 'N'Pongo' and fatally injured 'Kumi'. This is typical behaviour for a male gorilla who does not recognise an infant as his own.
'Kumi' was the only one of the gorilla infants born to Jersey's original breeding group that was not successfully reared.
Kodachrome transparency, scanned onto PhotoCD and corrected.

N'Pongo......

I understand N'Pongo had issues with Jambo, in that her grasp of gorilla etiquette wasn't good, having been hand reared and well socialised to people.
She never really accepted Jambo's dominance, and was only really interested in him when in oestrus. The fracas that resulted in Kumi's death may reflect this.

FBBird said:

I understand N'Pongo had issues with Jambo, in that her grasp of gorilla etiquette wasn't good, having been hand reared and well socialised to people.
She never really accepted Jambo's dominance, and was only really interested in him when in oestrus. The fracas that resulted in Kumi's death may reflect this.

Click to expand...

Very good summary of the situation. In later life tolerance between the two increased, though she could never be kept with him in the smaller indoor areas, or at night, when he shared his section with the other female 'Nandi'.

Kumi's death was a double tragedy as female births there were in the minority and also this was the first female baby Npongo had reared herself.

At the time it was generally presumed Jambo attacked and killed the baby during the fracas, perhaps not recognising it as his own. However in his book about Jambo, long term keeper R J-Scott who was present, says how as they were scuffllng, the baby was catapulted through the air and hit the ground hard. Jambo did then seize it and carry it in his mouth, but he had not tried to take it in the first place. Npongo's later babies she reared in the group with Jambo being present, though again not together in the indoor areas I think.

While Pertinax was posting, I was rereading the section of Richard Johnstone-Scott's book, which he has just summarised. We can never be sure of an animal's motivation, and it is quite possible that 'Jambo' meant 'Kumi' no harm - even R J-S isn't sure and none of us should second guess him about gorillas. Certainly 'N'Pongo' accepted 'Jambo' much better afterwards, although this could have been because the new exhibit, as it was then, was much better than the previous one.
Anyway, I still like the photo, which was the first I took of a female with a very young infant.

gentle lemur said:

Anyway, I still like the photo, which was the first I took of a female with a very young infant.

Click to expand...

There is an excellent b/w (press-type) photo of Npongo holding a previous infant(probably Ngola-the first one she reared) in the old building. She is holding it exactly the same way.

Npongo passed on her distinctive facial expression to most of her children- Mamfe, Tatu, Ngola & HKahilli to name a few. You can see it in some of the subsequent generations too e.g Mapema in Duisburg.

gentle lemur said:

We can never be sure of an animal's motivation, and it is quite possible that 'Jambo' meant 'Kumi' no harm - even R J-S isn't sure and none of us should second guess him about gorillas. .

Click to expand...

If its correct, my take would be that Kumi just got caught up in the melee with Npongo. At ZSL when Kesho attacked Tiny, he didn't really attack Mjuku, but made a concentrated effort (and on the 2nd introduction, succeeded) to get at the baby.