Lowland Gorillas in Europe 2025

JurassicMax said:
Recently Zoo Saarbrücken and Zoo Zürich exchanged females. Female Mayumi was send to Zürich and female Mary arrived at Saarbrücken.

Instagram of Zoo Saarbrücken (20/04/2025)
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Exciting to hear that Zurich will once again become a breeding group.

Right now the group stands at 1.2, with perhaps a few more moves to come (ie. getting an additional female or two, and potentially swapping Haiba into a non breeding group). Although Bwana comes from a well represented line himself so perhaps they're content with just pairing him up with Mayumi for breeding.
 
Jambo said:
Exciting to hear that Zurich will once again become a breeding group.

Right now the group stands at 1.2, with perhaps a few more moves to come (ie. getting an additional female or two, and potentially swapping Haiba into a non breeding group). Although Bwana comes from a well represented line himself so perhaps they're content with just pairing him up with Mayumi for breeding.
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More females will indeed be added. All plans for the group can be found in this earlier post:

MennoPebesma said:
In preparation for a new enclosure in 2031, changes will start to take place in Zoo Zurich's gorilla group in the near future. The group currently consists of one male and three females. In this composition, the group cannot expand further. Therefore, a beginning is being made to build a breeding group suitable for the future.

The 47-year-old silverback N'Gola has been suffering from various health problems for some time. This has had an increasing impact on his well-being but also on his dominance in the group. As a result, clashes between the three females are increasing, which also reduces their quality of life and threatens to break up the group. In addition, with 34 offspring, N'Gola's genes are strongly represented in the EEP. All these reasons combined have led the zoo, in consultation with the EEP, to decide to euthanise N'Gola in the near future and bring 17-year-old silverback Bwana from Warsaw Zoo to Zurich in exchange.

At the same time, two of the females will also leave Zoo Zurich. 17-year-old Mary will move to Saarbrücken Zoo and 12-year-old Mahiri will move to Zoo Wuppertal. The third female, 17-year-old Haiba, will stay in Zurich as part of the new breeding group. This group will further be joined by 9-year-old female Virunguita from Barcelona, 8-year-old female Ivindo from Vallée des Singes and 12-year-old female Mayumi from Saarbrücken.

Source: Neuer Lebensraum für Gorillas im Zoo Zürich | Zoo Zürich
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I really wonder why they choose Bwana as new silverback for Zurich- he is in no way genetically important.
 
Yassa said:
I really wonder why they choose Bwana as new silverback for Zurich- he is in no way genetically important.
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It does make little sense to me as well. I guess Bwana is relatively valuable via his maternal grandmother, who's wildborn and has very few viable descendants. But aside from that, he does come from very well represented lines.
 
That was years ago when each baby gorilla was very welcome regardless the genetics. The gorilla EEP has only changed their management strategy in the last few years - nowadays, all male infants are castrated and scheduled to stay in their natal group forever unless the infant is genetically undertepresented; only those are left intact and will get a breeding group later in life. Bwana is from overtepresented lines from both sides (mother and father) and if he were born now, he would surely be castrated. Even females from overrepresented lines are nowadays not allowed to breed (see females in Wuppertal for example). So why are they now pairing Bwana with genetically important females?!
 
Arek said:
Soon, maybe even in May, two females will join Azizi, the last gorilla male in Warsaw. I don't know from what zoo will they come.
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Presumably this will be a non breeding group considering Azizi comes from very well represented lines.
 
jtrbmvcq said:
Viking will move from Warsaw Zoo (Poland) to Burgers’ Zoo (Netherlands).

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I see from the lists that Viking was very young (rather too young IMO) when he left Moscow and joined Azizi at Warsaw ten years ago- he is the only (?) gorilla he has seen since he was five years old. But as a mother-raised male I'm confident he will integrate with the Arnhem females and take over successfully as their leader- though he may have a struggle to dominate the females at first, or not.
 
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Pertinax said:
I see from the lists that Viking was very young (rather too young IMO) when he left Moscow and joined Azizi at Warsaw ten years ago- he is the only (?) gorilla he has seen since he was five years old. But as a mother-raised male I'm confident he will integrate with the Arnhem females and take over successfully as their leader- though he may have a struggle to dominate the females at first, or not.
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Also Bwana, Zurich's new male. So it seems Warsaw have taken the opportunity to shake up their former bachelor group, and pursue a different direction.

Viking grew up in a reasonably sized troop, and witnessed a few births there as a young gorilla so has certainly had a relatively good social upbringing. Adding the experience he's had in a bachelor group at Warsaw, he should be in good stead to head the troop at Burgers.
 
Jambo said:
Also Bwana, Zurich's new male. So it seems Warsaw have taken the opportunity to shake up their former bachelor group, and pursue a different direction.

Viking grew up in a reasonably sized troop, and witnessed a few births there as a young gorilla so has certainly had a relatively good social upbringing. Adding the experience he's had in a bachelor group at Warsaw, he should be in good stead to head the troop at Burgers.
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My point was that he left at a very young age, only five years old.Most males stay rather longer in their natal groups. But they seem quite adaptable animals and I think he will be fine like many other bachelors have been when they move to female groups. So all three males that were/are at Warsaw will in a short space of time no longer be bachelors.
 
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