ZSL London Zoo New Western Lowland Male Gorilla

So if he was able to breed it wouldn't pass to any offspring and so he would be 'safe' to breed from?

In Human Klinefelters it says the sufferers may be infertile (or a similar description), not they always are. However I'm sure they have good reason for saying he's functionally sterile as they have a very highly regarded Vetinary department at ZSL- but I just wondered how sure they can be of that? And I can't really believe London's continued bad luck in all this!
 
volvox said:
Klinefelter syndrome isn't hereditary, it can't be passed on. It is "genetic" in that it's caused by a mistake in cell division during development in the womb, but it won't go further than the male it occurs in.
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My mistake (I'm a chemist not a biologist :o). But even so, ZSL must be making plans.

Alan
 
Nisha said:
The Mirror breaks the story... and refers to Kesho as a baby! :rolleyes:
London Zoo's baby gorilla Kesho is infertile - mirror.co.uk

Spokesperson for ZSL confirms that they are 95% sure about him being sterile
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Kesho is described as a "killer" gorilla, he was only doing what was natural for an adult male gorilla, even though I have my own reservations about him being allowed contact with the baby at such a young age.Poor London is having bad luck with this new Gorilla Kingdom, you can't even say it is going to be third time lucky with the arrival of Kesho now, however let us still try to think positive, I am sure one day fortunes will change here, London Zoo certainly deserve better luck.
 
Nisha said:
Spokesperson for ZSL confirms that they are 95% sure about him being sterile
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What a garbled innacurate article(the Mirror's:rolleyes:).

AFAIK the baby was harmed during Kesho's fighting/squabbling with the females, and not a deliberate attack by him- at least that's the usual scenario in these situations. It died in the hospital anyway.

Regarding his infertility. Mjuku is a young and obviously fertile female- she became pregnant by Yeboah very quickly(within a couple of months?) so if Kesho is mating with her it will soon become apparent if their forecast is correct.
 
Yes... but Kesho has been mating with Effi more or less since he arrived, so not a good sign...
 
Agreed. Effie is a proven female with two previous offspring so one would expect something by now. And if Mjuku doesn't become pregnant soon either I reckon that will clinch it..:(

But I just can't see that being the end of this story. Mjuku, in particular, is just at the start of her breeding life- they surely just won't let her vegetate (like Zaire has) with no more babies, especially as she has proved an excellent mother. I remain sure they will make another change in due course.
 
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Could A.I. be an option? if Kesho has been seen to be mating with the females then would he think that any babies that may be born by means of A.I. would be his own offspring? he would then accept the youngsters as his and there would be no aggression shown to them, not an ideal situation but perhaps better than no babies at all and it would maintain stability within the group.
 
A.I. has a remarkably low success rate in Gorillas. Its also stressful and invasive for the animals. But now that Kesho is settled with the females, any babies born in the group (by whatever means) he would regard as his own- its the timeframe until a new male is properly settled with new females that produces the danger period, not because he actually recognises whether a baby is fathered by him or not.

If he is really infertile I see several possible solutions if they want a proper group with offspring.

1. Swap him for another(fertile) male.

2. Add a younger male as suggested above, though this would probably have to be a temporary measure as a silverback won't normally tolerate another maturing male.

3 Send the female(s) to another male for mating and return them pregnant- Kesho would never know its not his babies. (This method is rather archaic nowadays and obviously stressful for the animals being moved around).

No 1 would seem to be the obvious/simplest solution.
 
New Western Lowland Male Gorilla » London Zoo

I was against turning the Sobell Pavillion into Gorilla Kingdom. Since 1990, when London Zoo was threatened with closure, the zoo has sent the world's best breeding group of orang-utans and a regularly breeding group of chimpanzees to other zoos in order to concentrate on breeding gorillas.

Before 1990, only four baby gorillas had been born at London Zoo. Since that time, five gorillas have died, including Tiny, who was born last year. Now Kesho has been found to be infertile. Why wasn't this checked before he came to London Zoo? If this had been known, would he have been introduced to Tiny?

I think that London Zoo should accept that it has a very poor record of breeding gorillas and should send the gorillas to other zoos. Howletts and Port Lympne zoos have a fantastic record of breeding gorillas and London Zoo should realise this. There are 750 captive western Lowland gorillas in zoos and this ape is safe from extinction, regardless of what happens in the wild.

Many endangered animals are not kept in zoos and could be saved from extinction using captive breeding and reintroduction. Why do so many zoos keep the same species of 'endangered' animals, with some species being represented by hundreds or thousands of individuals? There is something wrong about spending millions of pounds on a new enclosure for a saved species, when the same sum could save several smaller species or, better still, could be used to save fast disappearing wild habitats.
 
Dassie rat said:
I think that London Zoo should accept that it has a very poor record of breeding gorillas and should send the gorillas to other zoos. Howletts and Port Lympne zoos have a fantastic record of breeding gorillas and London Zoo should realise this. There are 750 captive western Lowland gorillas in zoos and this ape is safe from extinction, regardless of what happens in the wild.

Many endangered animals are not kept in zoos and could be saved from extinction using captive breeding and reintroduction. Why do so many zoos keep the same species of 'endangered' animals, with some species being represented by hundreds or thousands of individuals? There is something wrong about spending millions of pounds on a new enclosure for a saved species, when the same sum could save several smaller species or, better still, could be used to save fast disappearing wild habitats.
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Gorillas are not yet saved from extinction!:eek: Poaching is still a very deadly threat to any species of Gorilla and that Port Lympe/Howletts have an amazing record at breeding,yes true and I think they have succesfully returned three(?)youngsters back to Africa.
 
New Western Lowland Male Gorilla » London Zoo

In reply to Jordan-Jaguar97, western lowland gorillas are in danger of extinction in the wild, but so are thousands of other animals. Unless zoos are closed down or decide no longer to keep western lowland gorillas, 750 captive individuals is very high compared to the 80 distantly related captive individuals of a species that are generally considered to be required to save a species.

Compare 750 to the two female eastern lowland gorillas in Antwerp or the numbers of captive Cross River and mountain gorillas (zero). Two individuals representing three subspecies of gorillas, all of which have smaller populations in the wild than do western lowland gorillas.

Many zoos seem to make the mistake that if an animal species becomes extinct in the wild that the species is extinct. Sorry, I've seen several species that are extinct in the wild, but are alive in zoos. Zoos need to concentrate more on trying to save as many species as possible, but so many seem to want to keep the 'Noah's Ark' animals that they think most customers expect to se, rather than interesting the customers in animals that they never knew existed.
 
Dassie rat said:
I think that London Zoo should accept that it has a very poor record of breeding gorillas and should send the gorillas to other zoos.
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I am begining to wonder the same, but am sure they will never do so as they are a major drawcard for visitors to the Zoo and the enclosure was purpose built for this species.

The irony is that in 1986/7 London had a real chance of forming a proper group, when Zaire and Salome each reared a female infant (fathered by the male who was Chessington's Kumba), giving them a potential family group of four breeding females if they had later exchanged Kumba for another good unrelated male. But no, they broke up the family by sending the two young ones to Belfast to start another group, and where Kamilah has bred just once and Asali died before she could produce young, while the two mothers, Zaire and Salome, never bred again in London.

Since then London have been plagued with a whole catalogue of unsuitable animals including imported females (Diana, Messy, Minouche), unsuitable non-breeding males (Jeremiah, Bongo/Bobby), a hepatitis B scare,(Jomie, Zaire,Diana) the deaths of three different males(Jomie, Bongo/Bobby,Yeboah) incompatability problems(Jock, Messy,Minouche) and recently the loss of the only offspring produced since 1987.

But with another simple swap of males it may still be possible to reverse all this bad history.
 
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New Western Lowland Male Gorilla » London Zoo

As Pertinax said, gorillas were breeding in the 1980s, when four of London Zoo's five baby gorillas were born. The threat of closure in the early 1990s led to London Zoo's species being reduced by a third. This included reducing the number of great apes. The gorillas, which had been breeding regularly in the last decade, were considered sacrosanct. As no zoo would take the entire group of chimpanzees, the orang-utans were sent to Paignton. In the mid 1990s, London still wanted to concentrate on breeding gorillas, so the young chimpanzees were sent to Dudley.

Millions of pounds and several years later, Gorilla Kingdom replaced the Sobell Pavilion and Tiny the gorilla was born last year. He died a few weeks ago. Pertinax has listed the problems with gorillas over the last two decades. I don't expect the directors will accept it has made a mistake by concentrating on the gorillas - if the zoo had retained the breeding groups of chimpanzees or orang-utans, there would have been several babies, rather than just one gorilla. The zoo has accepted failure with the breeding record of the Chinese alligators, which have been replaced by Philippine crocodiles. The gorillas are being retained as money-spinners, probably due to an obsessions by certain members of staff and, as other Zoo Chat members have suggested, perhaps due to an animosity between ZSL and the Port Lympne and Howletts zoos. This is a shame, as ZSL had the best breeding group of orang-utans in the world and has successfully bred a range of other species over the years, as well as being involved in many conservation and education projects.
 
This is what I personally think should happen regarding the Gorillas at ZSL.

Keep Mjukuu at the Zoo as she is a proven breeder and excellent mother.

Send Kesho to Paignton Zoo and in return Pertinax(the Gorilla)moves to ZSL.

Effie could move to Port Lympe/Howletts with a swap for one of there females.

Zaire would probarly be best suited for Bristol with the option of a new female arriving from somewhere in Europe.

As far as I'm aware none of PL/Howletts are related to Mjukuu so all the moves could possibly work,what do you think Pertinax?:p
 
In the long term, what would be the best solution for an individual like Kesho? To be part of a bachelor group?

Also, and I don't want to go into 'dream' zoo ideas here, but IF London were to give up on gorillas, could the enclosure be adapted to house chimps or orang utans?
 
London sent its orang utans away because they appeared 'depressed' to the public. Its true that they weren't especially active and, against the backdrop of the small sobell cage, may not have looked too pleased to have been there.

The chimpanzees did remain right up until 2007, albeit 1.1 (the story of the unfortunate demise of the male at Whipsnade is noted elsewhere on this site), but never bred to my knowledge after the majority of the group was relocated to Dudley.

I am sure London will, for all their statements now, respond to what I expect will be a recommendation to send Kesho to a bachelor group before he gets much older. I'm sure they will justify the move for this very reason - that he will integrate better the younger he is, and that the females need a fertile male to pass on their genes.

As I imagine they will try again with yet another male, I sincerely hope there is no underlying stress caused to male gorillas by the layout and traffic in the building. I know several modifications have been made since the opening of the exhibit (screens, stand-off barriers, ironic given the amount of expensive floor-to-ceiling glass), which I welcome, but I hope these aren't sticking plasters for a larger problem connected with the way the apes are exposed to the public indoors and out.

I think London, if they are going to disrupt the group again by moving Kesho on, should be accept the legacy of gorillas at Regent's park for what it is, and instead work with bonobos.
 
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