This enclosure is home to the older group of females. The newer house does have a juvenile in the group which certainly makes us of the indoor climbing opportunities. So do the females they often stay up high out of the way.
This enclosure is home to the older group of females. The newer house does have a juvenile in the group which certainly makes us of the indoor climbing opportunities. So do the females they often stay up high out of the way.
This house now currently only contains two females- Bongo, one of the first two Gorillas at Twycross, and Biddy who has the distinction of the being their most successful breeding female, with TWO offspring. The window in the wall at the back shows the old male Joe's section- he lived alone but die last summer. I think that half is currently empty.
They tend to stay indoors mostly, coming outside to sunbathe or pluck grass to eat. Younger animals would probably use this equipment a lot more than these middle-aged adults do.
In the newer house the two females (particularly Asante) tend to sit on the platforms, ignoring the cargo nets and ropes etc as there is no 'group structure' or incentive to move about. Hopefully some of this may change when a new male finally arrives and just maybe they can form a cohesive group again.
I don't think I've ever seen a Gorilla actually use a cargo net, not sure if they trust them to climb on...
I've seen them use the large one at Jersey that is stretched between two trees. The juvenile at the time (2005) used the nets more than the others, but I did note that a couple of the females also used it as well.
I think I have a picture in the gallery of the youngster on the net...
How do they get away with such crappy groups? You'd think since to owner used to care so much about her animals she'd have made half an effort to get them in a big group and breeding regularly. Twycross is more like a museum from the zoos of the 50s.
regarding the current Gorilla situation- its all historical really...
They started off with a 'pet' pair- Joe & Bongo(who is still there)
Later they got another 'pair' that turned out to be two females(eva & biddy) so they added two young males ('mamfe and assumbo) from Jersey to join them. Assumbo was later sent away while Mamfe, Eva and Biddy became the 'breeding' group. But Mamfe was handraised so was a rather humanised male- he used to suck his thumb even as a silverback. They did breed but it was very sporadic, the odd baby occassionally(total of 4 plus one birth from sending Eva to Bristol Zoo) instead of the more normal regular breeding. Later they also split Joe & Bongo up and added her to Mamfe's group though at that time Joe 'shared' the females on an alternating basis with Mamfe, not a brilliant idea really for group cohesion.. This was in the first Gorilla house(now houses chimps) They also started a 2nd gorilla group with the two females born there(Asante and Ozala) joined by a young male Sekondi who was sent there from Edinburgh to be handreared. He grew up with Asante- (they lived originally in half of the Bonobo house) but never bred with her, though when the younger Ozala(Twycross's first mother reared Gorilla) was added, Sekondi & Ozala bred immediately.
But in the last two or three years Twycross have lost all their adult males- Mamfe, Sekondi, Joe and SamSam(who replaced Mamfe) also female Eva and Ozala's last baby. This has left them with just the four females and a 5year old male 'Matadi'(Sekondi x Ozala) which is all the Gorillas they currently have, though they are still living in the two different houses. When a new male finally arrives they may try to get all the females into a single group- that is the only sensible option.
