Wonderful shots, all of them. For some reason this is my favourite.
I wonder what will happen in this enclosure after they leave? As they have moved out a number of young males recently they can't be so desperate for space now. There will still be the single adult male 'Timbou'(?) in here presumably- maybe they will add a couple of younger ones for company?
I like this photo too, there is just enough vegetation to make the environment look suitable and the green paint works on the concrete rear wall, but above all I like to see gorillas taking an interest in their surroundings and selecting their favourite plants to browse on.
Timou's name was not on the signboard by the paddock. I wonder if he is just kept in the round house. Ujiji is also alone in the tall cage by the red pandas.
Timou's name was not on the signboard by the paddock. I wonder if he is just kept in the round house. Ujiji is also alone in the tall cage by the red pandas.
Provided he is still there(?) I believe Timbou lives permanently alone in the 1/4 section of the round house which is furthest from the overhead gantry into the paddock. I doubt he has had access to the paddock since he was seperated. He and the other singleton Ujiji will be their only bachelor silverbacks after the others go.
I wondered if they might start a new breeding group in here, as they haven't got any more young males to rehouse at present(also I believe they may relocate younger surplus males to Africa in future?) I'm sure it will be filled with something (gorillas that is).
Pretty sure from the headshape(big rounded crest) and face that this is one of the original breeding male Kisoro's descendants. He wasn't particularly large but was a beautiful looking male. Mataki has this headshape and he is Bitam x Killa(who was Kisoro's daughter).
I think these males haven't left the Park yet to go to Rhenen as was planned.
They have already relocated several younger Gorillas that had to be handraised from the breeding groups back to Africa. These were young babies up to about two years old- so their 'foster' care etc would obviously continue in Africa quite a while before they are able to be released fully into the wild. For them it wouldn't be much different treatment than for those which were born and 'orphaned' in Africa. I would think five years old might be the top age limit for being able to relocate them from the UK to Africa like this.
I can see how they may nowadays begin to send more younger gorillas of both sexes (maybe even mother-raised ones?) back to Africa rather than stockpile yet more bachelor males at Port Lympne. In the past there was no other option but now there might be? There are still many younger ones in their breeding groups which will eventually have to be housed elsewhere and some time back they indicated they wouldn't be creating/building enclosures for any more breeding groups. So what will happen to all the current young ones(both sexes) in the groups if they don't start sending more back to Africa. And wasn't that the original aim, anyway?
