Mountain Gorillas in captivity.

M

Mzungu

Well-Known Member
Im just wondering if there are any mountain gorillas in captivity. i vaguelly remember reading that there was one in NL maybe with an eastern and western lowlan gorillas. however i was wondering if a zoo actually has a breeding troop of captive mountain Gorillas.

Any other information is welcome to boost my knowledge :)

Mzungu.
 
The Dutch gorilla you refer to is actually at the Antwerp Zoo in Belgium. It is a female which is most likely an Eastern lowland gorilla and as such probably the last in captivity. The last confirmed Mountain Gorillas in captivity died after a few years at Cologne Zoo in Germany in 1978 or so. Belgian and German members can no doubt go into more details for you.
 
There have been so few Mountain Gorillas in captivity, much less ever a breeding group. Mind you that only a few decades ago a zoo that had more than one gorilla was considered something. Breeding was thought to be impossible.
 
Baldur said:
The Dutch gorilla you refer to is actually at the Antwerp Zoo in Belgium. It is a female which is most likely an Eastern lowland gorilla and as such probably the last in captivity. The last confirmed Mountain Gorillas in captivity died after a few years at Cologne Zoo in Germany in 1978 or so. Belgian and German members can no doubt go into more details for you.
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Given the fact that Zoo d'Anvers has a singleton and there IS in fact an Eastern lowland gorilla rehab in situ in D.R. Congo and that Zoo d'Anvers is planning on phase out with gorillas .... it would seem the decent thing to re-house the purported Eastern lowland to this rehab programme. :D
 
Ahh right. so i take it taht they only have Western gorillas in captivity (mountain gorillas are found in the east right?)

I thought that maybe an American zoo would have some mountain gorillas. I also didnt know that there was only one Eastern Gorilla in captivity.

Who knows with the increase in standard of exhibits and the fact that mountain gorillas are only at 700 in the wild. one zoo may need to take in a breeding group (very extreme and unlikely i know).
 
@Mzungu, there are 2 eastern gorilla's in captivity. One female mountain- and one female eastern lowland gorilla, both in Antwerpen(Belgium).
 
Ahh okay. thanks for the info. does anyone have a vague idea of how many gorillas there are in captivity. their numbers of definately increasing with many zoos planning to have them in the future such as Chester.
 
at 1/1/2008 there were 875 western gorilla's listed in the ISB. in 2007 the population grew with 3 animals.
 
Thanks, just as i suspected. there are more western gorillas in captivity then there are mountain gorillas in the wild.
 
Maguari said:
She is the (possible/probable) Mountain Gorilla at Antwerp.
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I still don't think Amahoro is a true 'Beringei' Mountain Gorilla as she does not have long shaggy hair. But nor is she the same as Victoria, who is a definite Eastern Lowland. l have often wondered if she came from the Bwindi Forest in Uganda- though labelled 'Mountain Gorillas' this population is said to have characteristics of both the other races/subspecies(Graueri & Beringei).
 
That's not a bad theory - it's true that visually she doesn't quite match the 'classic' Mountain Gorilla look.
 
Dom said:
Just a querie, but why don't mountain gorillas do well in captivity?
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Its not so much that, more a case that they hardly ever come into captivity due to their extreme rarity. There are only four documented cases of known 'true' Mountain Gorillas (not Eastern Lowlands) leaving Africa.

1. 'Miss Congo' went to Bronx Zoo in New York in 1920's
2. 'Reuben' (male) sent to London Zoo circa 1961, died soon after. (He had been found by a tracker near the body of an adult male that had died naturally, and seemed to have wandered away from his group by mistake)
3. Coco & Pucker (females) sent to Cologne Zoo in Germany. Big row about them being sent as a political gift from Rwanda to Germany. They both died in 1978.

As noted above, there is ongoing debate about whether the Antwerp female 'Amohoro' is a true Mountain Gorilla or not.
 
One question did Chester not clam to have Mountain Gorilla,s ? at some point in the 60,s or 70,s. Remember a conversation about this when i started as a keeper at Marwell back in the very early 80,s.
 
Chester's 'Mountain' Gorillas were Eastern Lowlands. When they were first imported the scientific distinctions between them weren't so clear cut- so they quite understandably called them 'Mountain' Gorillas- but they weren't.
 
Chester's eastern lowland gorillas (graueri) made a deep impression on me when I was young. This is one of my favourite photos of the old male Mukisi.



He was eventually sent to Antwerp to mate with Victoria, the female bred there, but unfortunately they were unsuccessful. Antwerp originally had two pairs, but Victoria was their only offspring. In the early '70s there were a few other graueri in the States and another at Tel Aviv (if I remember rightly), but in those days it was very rare for zoos to co-operate by sending animals on breeding loan and there was little knowledge of the conditions that gorillas require for breeding.

Alan
 
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