I used the word homesick rather to describe the atmosphere of my picture than the real situation.
I don´t think she has any problems with the others animals at DK. During my visits, there was never any aggresion against her or any signs of her being shy or afraid. According to other, more frequent zoo-visitors, the other female Messy "adopted" her from the very first moment, she stayed very near to her, showed her all new thinks (fe automatic drinking-bowl etc.), led her through the outside pen and slept with her in one nest. The male Tadao is very frendly to her and finds she "cute", he doesn´t try to steal her food or to show his domination as a silverbeck. But I haven´t also heard of any mating between them.
On the other hand, there is a big diffence between her, as a young active and playfull gorilla, and the other two rather lazy and sleepy older ones. She runs over the outside pen, she claimbs the poles and nets up and down, she seeks for some fun, but the others are rarely interested. I´m affraid the boredome can very easily come. The second point is that Tadao is very possible unfertile. So I don´t really understand the decision to send her, a young healthy and parent-raised female to Dvur.
If I remember right Kamba had an abort in Dvur Kralove before coming to Prague, sired by Tadao (2004?). That means he was fertile by that time and given that he`s wildborn, the EEP is probably giving him a desperate, last try with Shinda. His chances of finally siring an offspring is much better with a young, social female then with old Messy or Kamba.
Acctually, it´s not so clear with the abort of Kamba. I´m well aware that I´ve written myself about this abort previously. But some time ago, I´ve talked about it with some other people. And what is sure - that the keepers in Dvur found blood in Kamba´s room one morning, so they assumed it was probably an abort in an early stage of a pregnancy. But there was no pregnancy-test done before, nor have they found any foetus in the enclosure. So there is no "hard evidency" she was really pregnant.
But your reason sounds good, and if Tadao shoud ever breed, then with a completely new young female like Shinda.
Thank you Jana for your information. It's a relief she's getting along with the others. I really hope Tadao isn't infertile, a group with infants is so much better for the entire group. About why she went to Dvur zoo, I can only say I know Burgers zoo and Dvur are exchanging a lot of animals. May be it simply goes that way, some tigers (just an example) for Burgers, a gorilla for Dvur.
