@Onychorhynchus coronatus What a different story... I didn't know he had already been with females. Yeah, don't know if it would have worked with the ones from Guadalajara. One of them is quite old too, isn't she?
It's quite funny that primates sometimes have better relations with keepers than with the ones from the same species. If I'm not wrong, "Macaco Tião" from Rio zoo used to act like this too.
@David Matos Mendes Yes, he had been briefly introduced several times to Arila but only briefly as he would probably have killed her if she had been left with him for too long. For whatever reason Bantu was a very anti-social gorilla.
The gorillas at Guadalajara are mother and daughter and the mother who is called "Chencha" if I remember correctly was a wild caught animal (so very important genetically) who arrived in the late 70's or early 80's. The daughter "Faustina" is of reproductive age though and is also important genetically because her father "Chato" was also a wild caught animal.
Yes, often they form very strong bonds with their keepers. For example, Bantu would play games with his keeper like peek-a-boo and hide and seek and would like to be stroked and tickled, have his hand patted and talked to and things like that but only from this one keeper and nobody else (apart from a few people who he would merely tolerate he seemed to resent anyone else trying to be friendly to him). He really did love his keeper and had a strong bond with him.
Was Macaco Tião also a gorilla or another species of great ape ?
@Onychorhynchus coronatus "Macaco Tião" was a crazy chimpanzee (probably, he got mentally ill because of the extremely small enclosure). He threw s**t in some politicians that went to the zoo to make campaign, wich helped building in him a symbol against the old politics in the entire country. after that, he got pretty famous for being elected "vereador" in Rio. Unfortunately, he never assumed the chair in the city hall .
If it happened today I would nominate the chimp president of the Republic of Brazil and even if he continued to throw s*** around he would still do a better job of this than the current president of the country.
I do remember reading about that white rhino at SP zoo that was nominated to lead a political party in the 60's / 70's.
@David Matos Mendes I think there was also a solitary male gorilla in Argentina at the Buenos Aires zoo that may have died at some point in the late 1990s.
I'm not 100 % sure about that though and I can't remember where I heard it from.
@Onychorhynchus coronatus Yeah, anything would be better than what we have in the government nowadays...
"Tião" was elected in 1988. with 400.000 votes. The rhino from zoo SP was named "Cacareco", and actually received many votes too.
Never heard about this gorilla in Argentina. When talking about apes, I only know they have a lonely orangutan.
