Historical notes about the Gorilla's at Artis - with pictures :
The history of the Western lowland gorilla's at Artis is quite well-known. Both the Studbook for the species as well as ZTL provide us with some good information. Evenso I want to give a little history about the animals and provide photos of the animals and the enclosures.
The first Western lowland gorilla at Artis was Japie, a male which arrived at Artis in 1936, in a time that Gorilla's were VERY rare in European zoos. In this period only a handfull of other zoos had the species in their collection !
Japie came from Cameroon and was approx. 8 1/2 month when he arrived at the zoo. He lived for 7 years and died on Oct. 28 1943.
2 photos of Japie shortly after his arrival at Artis.
Then Artis was Gorilla-less for 10 year and then Babar, an approx. 1 year-old male from the Congo was recieved in June 1953 and he did very well at Artis , but in 1974 the Gorilla-house at Artis needed to be renovated and Babar was send for the period of the renovation to Burgers Zoo. Here he became problems with his heart and died at Arnhem in July 1974.
Babar 1953
1955 a female was obtained for Babar, approx. 1 year old Moussa which came from Gabon but had lived first 6 months at the Zoo of Brazzaville before she was put on the plane to Amsterdam. She did not very well and died Aug. 1957. I've found sofar no photos of Moussa.
1964 2 Gorilla's were donated to the zoo, an approx. 2 year old male called Tembo and an approx 3 year old female Banja. Both were wild-caught in Cameroon and did very well at Artis.
Tembo became a beautifull Silverback.
During 1978 a female - Linda - from Dierenpark Wassenaar was send on breeding-loan to Artis and Tembo did his work well. After returning to Wassenaar Linda gave birth in Jan. 1979 to the first Gorilla born in the Netherlands - VIP !
Also Linda's second son - Yaoende , born 1983 - was the result of a breeding-loan from Linda and Tembo.
Tembo and Banja were housed first in the Gorilla-house, a relative small enclosure with no access to an outdoor-enclosure and which is now in use as indoor-enclosure for the Chimp-group at Artis :
In April 1990 a new Gorilla-enclosure was opened and Tembo and Banja, together with 4 more newly obtained Gorilla's moved to this much better enclosure :
They lived a happy live in the new enclosure untill 1997 when a bacterium killed a large part of the Gorilla-group : Banja died half Dec 1997 and Tembo died on Christmas Eve 1997. In front of the present outdoor-enclosure a statue inspired on Tembo can be found :
Tembo and Banja -1964
and Banja -1990 in the new enclosure
Back to the history of the Artis Gorillas:
1965 a second wild-caught female - 18 years old - was ( almost ) obtained from Hannover. This animal - Rajah - came from the Lincoln Park Zoo but because Hannover had expected a male they were willing to sell Rajah to Artis. The animal died however already before it reached Artis...
1977 a wild-caught female Gorilla was recieved from Wassenaar but here I'm not sure if this was the breeding-loan of Linda or if another Gorilla from Wassenaar was send to Artis to stay there. Also no name known and no information about the further life-history of this animal.
1984 a wild-caught female from Rotterdam Zoo / Blijdorp arrived but was already send a year later to Tierpark Berlin. If I'm right this must have been Bianka but further information is not known to me.
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1985 Because Tembo had proven to be a good breeder 2 females from Wroclaw were send to Artis but without succes, both females ( names unknown to me ) died the same year...
In 1990 Artis started to obtain further Gorilla's for the new constructed Gorilla-enclosure :
From Dublin 2 Gorilla's arrived in March 1990 : 7-year old Yaounde, the son of Tembo and Linda and 5 year old Shinda from which I have no further information.
From Stuttgart 2 further Gorilla's came in May 1990 : Dafina and Mojoko ( "Moyo") both bred in captivity.
Dafina became 1993 the first Gorilla to give birth to a male-baby ( Awali ) at Artis and was the youngest Gorilla to give birth ( she was 6 years and 3 month at the time of the birth ). Awali had to be hand-raised and was later send to the Gorilla-nursery at Stuttgart.
Moyo died half Dec. 1997 to the bacteria which also killed Tembo and Banja.
After the big set-back of 1997 several zoos send Gorilla's to Artis, among them Duisburg and Apenheul. At the moment Artis has a healthy breeding-group which contained 6 males and 3 females in 2019.
( ) is known as the Kerbert-terras and was disigned by architect Ouendag and for the disign he got instructions from the well-known Hamburger Zoo director Hagenbeck.
(Maybe next weekend) 
