ZSL London Zoo London lose Baby Gorilla

john;440143 It happened with the male Lukas said:
... it happened with the male Buzandi(Hanover) and the one year old male Awembe was injured and had to be removed. It even happened with Jambo (Jersey) though in that case it was his own daughter that was killed accidentally.(he got in with the mother by accident)

It is ridiculous for anyone to blame either the Zoo or Kesho in this situation. They had a quite unusual, almost impossible, situation to deal with here. The Daily Mail in particular always seems very accusatory in its reporting.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
john said:
Don't blame Kesho. As far as I can see he seems to be a good male and future groupleader.
Click to expand...

Kesho had as good a social upbringing as you could wish for. He came direct from his natal group in Dublin and had been living with his parents, younger brothers and a young female until shortly before he left for London Zoo.
 
I`m not so sure it`s unfair to blame the zoo. They knew it was likely to happen. If they didn`t, they would be indeed incompetent. The zoo should just tell the truth that they knew the baby would probably not survive this, but they choosed to do the introductions anyway and explain why. There are good reasons not to leave a gorilla family without a silverback for years. If I were the zoo director, I would have never made this birth public.
 
Clouded Leopard said:
A leading evolutionary anthropologist has called London Zoo "incompetent" over the death of its baby gorilla in an attack by a silverback.

BBC News - London Zoo criticised over death of baby gorilla Tiny
Click to expand...

Zoo professionals have gone to great pains to use their scientific and practical knowledge of wild animals behaviour to design exhibits that simulate wild conditions as closely as possible. However, it appears that many captive environments have not provided the conditions and stimuli necessary for some species to develop appropriate survival behaviours.
 
First things first: do we REALLY know first-hand what happened?

What transpired
A) Impossible situation: group leader dying, female pregnant, no socially functioning group on an expertly built exhibit for years, transfer in new male, birth baby gorilla, belated introduction to full group.

B) Kesho - as Pertinax - has pointed out correctly came from a socially well-adapted upbringing and was socially good-natured.

C) Introduction creates stress - and the principal reason for the gorilla baby being caught up in the fracas - was the second day when all group members where introduced to the young female and baby.

My personal perception
D) I do not care much for evolutionary anthropologists ... if they do not have any zoo management experience.


Take good advice and good PR.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
C) Introduction creates stress - and the principal reason for the gorilla baby being caught up in the fracas - was the second day when all group members where introduced to the young female and baby.
Click to expand...

For the record I believe it was a group introduction on the first day too, not 1.1. as I indicated originally. (I've changed that post)

I can't see how the zoo could have avoided going public with this birth, they would have had to have hidden Mjuku and baby away at the back for months, and of course she needed to have companionship (the other females) so had to be on display with them. Under the circumstances, maybe publicising the pregnancy(on the ITV series) and birth with press and videos so deliberately wasn't such a good idea though.

The irony is that this is ZSL so of course its in the limelight, for better or worse- a similar happening at a provincial/regional zoo probably wouldn't have even got into the local newspaper!
 
Last edited:
catinthehat said:
They have got this explanation on the website, it seems like they are being pretty honest about what happened.

ZSL London Zoo?s infant gorilla
Click to expand...

I would have congratulated them on being so open and honest about this but if you hadn't posted the link I would never have found this item.

If you go to the home page there is nothing there. If you click on 'news' there are no links there either! There is no news on the Gorilla Kingdom page either.

So how would the normal website visitor find such a story?
 
Last edited:
Kifaru Bwana said:
Let me re-iterate once more the recent tidings from ZSL/R.P. where gorillas is concerned has nothing whatsoever to do with the exhibit.

It has been medical, social and grouping (in nature and nothing else). With every gorilla introduction there is a fracas in terms of group dynamics and who is boss and madam. It is just so bloody unfortunate.
Click to expand...

I don't think Bwassa was blaming the exhibit, just commenting that ZSL haven't had much luck since it opened.
 
From what I could gel from one of the newspaper articles on the subject, it would seem that the curator and gorilla keeping staff chose their introduction timings very carefully on the basis of the cues of the individual animals. I again point out that Kesho has always been a socially well-adapted animal and hence less likely to kill an infant on that basis.

Moreover, we cannot be judge, jury or executionar as simply we have not been around to do so (and neither have the papers). Simple arithmatic has it that newspaper reports are not the most reliable sources leading by conjecture et cetera (whom are their sources?). And even less so the kind of experts they call in to comment (an evolutionary anthropologist and ZooCheck claptrap cannot be further removed from any zoo management/keeping experience(s) :rolleyes::mad:!!!

I will leave it at that.
 
Twycross Zoo had a similar problem when Oumbie arrived there with the young male Matadi, Oumbie went for Matadi but because of his age and size came out of it with only a few flesh wounds, he was then placed in Joe's den where he had the company of Biddy and Bongo next door before being re located to the batchelor groupe at Paignton.Was it worth the risk of introducing Tiny to Kesho at such a small size and young age?, could it not have been possible to keep Kesho seperated from the baby for longer ,so when they were finaly introduced if Kesho had attacked Tiny he may have been big enough not to suffer such serious wounds, obviously Kesho cannot be blamed for this as he was only acting as a male gorilla should.Again when something like this happens at London Zoo they get it in the neck more than what a provincial zoo would get, you now have experts claiming that they should no longer have great apes, what concerns me is remembering the sad business of Pole Pole the African elephant at London twenty eight years ago and how that very sad episode was said by many to be the start of London's trouble which later resulted in them nearly closing in the early ninetees.
 
TARZAN said:
Twycross Zoo had a similar problem when Oumbie arrived there with the young male Matadi, Oumbie went for Matadi but because of his age and size came out of it with only a few flesh wounds

Was it worth the risk of introducing Tiny to Kesho at such a small size and young age?, could it not have been possible to keep Kesho seperated from the baby for longer ,so when they were finaly introduced if Kesho had attacked Tiny he may have been big enough not to suffer such serious wounds, obviously Kesho cannot be blamed for this as he was only acting as a male gorilla should.
Click to expand...

1. Twycross situation was somewhat different- Matadi was already a juvenile while Oumbie had no experience of female or younger Gorillas, having lived in a same-aged male group for( far too) many years. I believe what happened was that he tried to mate(!) with Matadi and got rebuffed, so he bit him instead. I think it was actually asking a lot of Oumbie after that sort of background, to breed and turn into the good father he currently seems to be.
(Ironically I think if Twycross had had Kesho as their male(there was never any suggestion they would, it never came up) he probably would have got along fine with Matadi- as he had an exactly same-aged brother(Alf) in his own group in Dublin- though of course we can't say that as fact)

2. London would have had to wait three or even four years for the baby to be big enough to be safe from serious injury during any introduction disputes. During that time 'Kesho' could well become permanently psychologically 'messed up' from the frustration of not having full access to the group, and so more aggressive generally. And apart from that ZSL wouldn't have been able to display them as a proper group either for all that time.

3. The reason they got Kesho when they did was to try and integrate him into the group before the baby was born- so any fighting, including risk to the baby, during the initial introduction phase would be out of the way by the time it was born. They only had about two and a half months and it wasn't enough. So it didn't work out and so when they finally did it the baby was present too and it got hurt.

4. Hopefully they can move on from this soon.
 
Last edited:
Dr. Volker Sommer´s comments are very strange. First, he is a very compent and highly regarded primatalogist. he has many years of research of primates in both natural habitats and capitive collections. The list of his publications is very impressive. he wrote the most important study on homosexuality in primates, published both in english and german. But most scientists of his stature would never publically attack a highly regarded institution such as the ZSL which has done so much for conservation and animal care. Also, most scientists with an important academic prestige would avoid making such rash statements to the press, where they can be misquoted. Volker, with his great academic stature, broke a basic rule for a science ethic, do not make public statements before you have absolutely all the empircal facts at hand. he was not there when this sad event occured, so he does not have adequate first hand information.Since, other zoochaters may think Volkers comments are typical of all anthropologists or research scientists i wanted to mention this.
 
Are there many examples of captive gorilla groups, possibly with infants, where the male has died, that have not replaced him? Isn't there a group at Howletts with no adult male? Is their social structure deteriorating? Do we know of any examples where infants have been raised in an all-female group where the adult male has died, or in every case do males get replaced and infants get killed? If there are, how badly-socialised did the infants grow up to be?

ie, is there a precedent for NOT following the path that London took, and what was the outcome?
 
carlos77 said:
Dr. Volker Sommer´s comments are very strange. First, he is a very compent and highly regarded primatalogist. he has many years of research of primates in both natural habitats and capitive collections. The list of his publications is very impressive. he wrote the most important study on homosexuality in primates, published both in english and german. But most scientists of his stature would never publically attack a highly regarded institution such as the ZSL which has done so much for conservation and animal care. Also, most scientists with an important academic prestige would avoid making such rash statements to the press, where they can be misquoted. Volker, with his great academic stature, broke a basic rule for a science ethic, do not make public statements before you have absolutely all the empircal facts at hand. he was not there when this sad event occured, so he does not have adequate first hand information.Since, other zoochaters may think Volkers comments are typical of all anthropologists or research scientists i wanted to mention this.
Click to expand...

Carlos,

Fair comment. I was not suggesting that ... said evo anthropologist was typical of all his fellow scientists.

I merely expressed my views vis a vis the statement and that as you pointed out yourself a scientist should not make public statements before having all the empirical facts at his/her disposal before makin any informed judgements.

Adagium: never let personal opinions cloud the scientific mind, or science is finished.

Best wishes,

K.B.
 
I'm glad to say that ZSL now has this news on the front page of their website, not hidden away somewhere where I couldn't find it, even though I'd been told it was there!
 
johnstoni said:
Are there many examples of captive gorilla groups, possibly with infants, where the male has died, that have not replaced him? Isn't there a group at Howletts with no adult male? Is their social structure deteriorating? Do we know of any examples where infants have been raised in an all-female group where the adult male has died, or in every case do males get replaced and infants get killed? If there are, how badly-socialised did the infants grow up to be?

ie, is there a precedent for NOT following the path that London took, and what was the outcome?
Click to expand...

1. Howletts do currently have a group with no adult male(Kijo's old group) and apparently will not replace him for some long while yet because there are small young in the group(the last being born after Kijo's death). I don't know of any adverse social effects on the females, but there are two Blackback males(10 & 9 years old) still living in this group so there is a male presence of sorts.

2. Twycross female 'Ozala' gave birth to her 2nd infant three months after her mate 'Sekondi' died. She had reared her first infant 'Matadi' perfectly(with Sekondi being present) but this one(N'doki) died after a few months. Its possible Ozala neglected her through stress or she was malnourished- both possibly the result of having no adult male present.

3. I don't know about the wild situation but suspect male-less groups don't stay that way for long- there are plenty of singleton males probably always on the lookout for a group to take over. The leadership/defensive role of a silverback means females are 'unprotected' without one. I can't think of any similar examples to the recent ZSL situation in other zoos, but it must have come up somewhere.

4. During periods in the past when London had no male 'Zaire' in particular became very stressed, plucking herself and bullying the other females present(not the current ones). I think they based their theory that the female group would break down without a male on that experience, and I think its true.

5. I believe a baby can be perfectly well socialised just by growing up with females, without having a male present. For a young male, adult leadership behaviour is instinctive (IMO), rather than 'learned' from its father.
 
Last edited:
Bristol Zoo have been very successful with baby Gorilla's,

mind you they have only ever had to introduce females to the group, they have bred from all the females now, and its interesting watching the young males interact with their Dad, he seems very gentle and patient :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top