Mysore Zoo only gorilla in India

Chlidonias

Chlidonias

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The Associated Press: India's only gorilla alone despite search for mate
India's only gorilla alone despite search for mate
By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM

MUMBAI, India (AP) — India's only gorilla is lonely. Even though Polo is 6 feet tall, dark-haired, bilingual and good-natured, the 36-year-old silverback gorilla is still single after a fruitless eight-year search.

"We have written to all major zoos in the world. We have tried everything," said Vijay Ranjan Singh, the director of the zoo in Mysore, a city in southern India about 525 miles southeast of Mumbai.

Polo, who was sent to Mysore from Ireland's Dublin Zoo in 1995, has been alone since 2000 when his mate, 46-year-old Sumathi, died.

Singh said that because gorillas are considered highly endangered, other zoos are reluctant to part with theirs. The Mysore zoo doesn't want to send Polo abroad to find a friend because he is India's only gorilla. Also, animal transfers are usually done within the framework of breeding programs that are often regional.

Worried that failure to find a companion for Polo could cause him psychological harm, his keepers decided to make one final plea. "He needs psychological and emotional enrichment that we can't provide," Singh said by telephone from Mysore on Thursday.

Polo is a western lowland gorilla, native to the forests of central Africa. Silverback gorillas — marked with a distinctive patch — are dominant males who usually live in family groups in the wild.

"He is not very happy. The few joys he enjoys are bathing and searching for food that his keeper hides in blocks of ice or in bamboo to keep him energized," Singh said.

For the prospective mate, Singh says Polo is good-natured and responds to commands in both the local Kannada language and English.

"He is in fine health, but lonely," Singh said. "After eight years, anyone would be."
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Indian zoos for years have suffered from being virtually cut off from all ISIS or the international zoo community. However, import and export burocracy has also contributed to the relative low number in transfers to or fro India to other regions.

Mysore Zoo is actually one of the better Indian zoos - as both our Indian correspondents may testify - and has some unusual (well for the Indian subcontinent) species on exhibit -.

For starters: I wish that EAZA would provide them with some female southern white rhino in exchange for the lone young female black rhino languishing without a mate. This would add on to the African biome theme they have developped at Mysore Zoo (next to native species exhibition).

Several other species might benefit from exchanges overseas. In the past Koeln Zoo has been instrumental in this (was not their wanderu troupe to be relocated to Mysore or back to India? - which lately has fallen through)?
 
You made some good points Jelle and maybe it could open up the way for Indian zoos to join the EEP for Indian rhinos or all species of rhino for that matter
 
I have been trying to help Polo's cause for quite some time now. Been in otuch with Gorilla Haven. But I think Mysore is unlikely to let him go and I think that is wrong. If no zoo is willing to send a mate for Polo then he should be sent to a zoo outside India. But I think he will not be becuase he has great display value.
 
That is a shame, how would someone like it to be put all alone in a cage and not even be sent to Civilization cause your soo fascinating to other creatures. ?? Hope you keep fighting for what's right though! Kudos on you!
 
Animal Rights said:
I have been trying to help Polo's cause for quite some time now. Been in otuch with Gorilla Haven. But I think Mysore is unlikely to let him go and I think that is wrong. If no zoo is willing to send a mate for Polo then he should be sent to a zoo outside India. But I think he will not be becuase he has great display value.
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Animal Rights,

CZA and the Mysore Zoo themselves are responsible for animal transfers, so jurisdiction does lie elsewhere. With the incorporation of the CZA main zoos into ISIS conservation breeding and transfer arrangements for Indian zoos and CZA will be much improved.

A suggestion to move an ex-EEP gorilla to Gorilla Haven is out of the question as in that project EAZA and the donating zoo will have say/jurisdiction. Direct action is much better and criticism is fine ... but it has to be realistic. I am much for improving basic conditions including exhibits, husbandry+management and transfers in-situ then intercontinental. In that respect your suggestion is far from realistic.

A critical note here: if you wish to improve conditions you must come up with the cash required and work with CZA and the zoos involved and not outside of them. F.i. if someone were to want to improve something with me, I would not like them to go through 3rd parties and around or to the press instead.

Jelle



Jelle
 
Given the distribution of Burkholderia pseudomallei in India and the susceptibility of gorillas to this disease, maybe refraining from keeping gorillas in India might not be such a bad idea...
 
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