Melbourne Zoo Rigo the gorilla.....

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This sounds like a great idea for this area, when i was at the zoo last year, the whole area was bloked off, and it had no animals (except Ringo i presume). This was as the orangs had just moved over to the new exhibit, and 1 exhibit was already sitting idile.

this idea of refurbishment is a better idea than a shopping precint here. it will totally reform this area and expand a fantastic gorrilla precint. given the larger area (if it is large), could this open up options for a rotational exhibit? i wasnt sure on this, as i thought there were 2 different animal management areas. please expalin, maybe pat, as you now are our Melbourne Correspondent.

aslo staying in the gorrilla precint, does the exhibit still have De Brazza's, again i wasn't sure if this mixed species scenario has been ablished.
 
at my estimations, the melbourne grottoes could be transformed into a size and shape comparable or slightly larger than the taronga gorilla exhibit. certainly, for the purpose of enrichment, i would hope that the two gorilla groups DO get rotated from exhibit to exhibit, even if it is somewhat sporadic of slightly in favour of teh larger troop. however, this all depends on how easily the apes can gain access the eachothers enclosures behind the scenes and the design and layout of teh night dens. it would be ideal though wouldn't it?

hopefully $600,000 goes a long way to redeveloping the site. its a bit of a blank canvass and the zoo could effectively redesign it in numerous ways, giving the african rainforest a brand new entrance in the process of creating a gorilla exhibit very unique to its other (excellent) showpiece one.
 
how did you find out about this, and what do they plan to do? such as fill in moats, then what sort of barriers, large concrete walls, mock rock them, and what enricment features?
 
FOTZ volunteer, so don't take any of it as concrete (or mockrock as it may be ;)), they usually just relay rumours. its any design features would be pure speculation, though undoubtably themoat will be filled - it dangerous for gorillas and is effectively a lot of dead space.

oh and the debrazza's (the two that are left) are no longer in the gorilla exhibit. they taunted motaba particuarly and showed little fear of the apes, stealing food and entering their night dens. eventually motaba killed one.
 
patrick said:
visited melbourne yesterday. rigo still has not been properly integrated. instead he is still getting used to the rainforest exhibit - sharing it on a rotation system with the females.

the batchelors are apparently doing "okay" - its been a bit stressful, particuarly on motaba. interestingly i was told he's very fond of his youngest son though yakini and motaba do not have the best relationship.
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Patrick- do you know if Rigo is being mixed succesfully with any of the females yet?. From what you describe it doesn't sound as if he is....

Regarding Motaba and co- its not surprising Motaba doesn't like losing his erstwhile group- unfortunately its a hard fact of gorilla husbandry in zoos nowadays but it doesn't make me feel comfortable...

Did you know that while batchelor gorilla groups do seem to work okay in captivity (its fortunate that they do) there is NO reliable evidence they ever occur in the wild...(despite what the notices or a voluble ' Friend of the Zoo' would tell you!) Gorilla Field Researchers working on Lowland Gorillas have found that lone silverbacks and other nongroup-living males live and travel in solitary fashion and tend to AVOID contact with other males whereever possible. I believe the concept of batchelor groups came from Dian Fossey's old mountain gorilla 'group 5', which contained several adult males and one very old female, when she died the males did stay together- at least for some time. But this was a very atypical case and certainly hasn't ever been observed in Lowland Gorillas

Of course Motaba and his sons know each other well anyway.Its interesting he favours one of them, and not the other. In the batchelor gorilla group at Paignton Uk the silverback 'Pertinax' also seemed to 'adopt' one yonger male while others kept more of a distance.
 
Good to hear there are plans to renovate the old grottoes too- thats essenial if they are going to keep the surplus males longterm. I believe more zoos are going to be asked to house their own surplus males, as well as a male/female troup, in future.
 
from what i hear thats the plan here - that zoos wanting to breed gorillas take responsibility for the surplus males they create.

i didn't know that gorillas were SO exclusively solitary in the wild. of course no doubt lonliness is not something that in unique to just gorillas in captivity. i would be interested to know however what percentage of males
surviving to adulthood, eventually find themselves a female or troop.
in otherwords, do batchelors tend to stay batchelors?

part of what saddened me about rigo for so long was that not only was he alone but that his enclosure was small and boring. it wasn't a particuarly enriching space. nor did it appear he was he ever given access to the rainforest exhibit. which no mdoubt whould have been a welcome change for him on occasions.

its been a long time and hes quite old now. i have my doubts he will breed with the females, but at least he might have some enjoyable few years left in him.

as far as i know - he has not yet benn mixed with the females.
 
patrick said:
fits been a long time and hes quite old now. i have my doubts he will breed with the females, but at least he might have some enjoyable few years left in him.

as far as i know - he has not yet benn mixed with the females.
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I think I'd give him a 50/50 chance, provided of course that they can get him into the group okay.

I've no idea what percentage of those 'lone' males in the wild ever manage to take over troops of their own, I haven't seen anything published on that yet. My guess is some never do. In captivity I've seen some very 'dozy' males which seem uninterested in females- these ones at least don't seem to be 'leadership material'!
 
no doubt life is tough for a lone silverback in the congolese jungle. you would guess that the mortality rate is higher for males that feamles as a result, but obviously not in zoos. thankfully for them, they live okay in batchelor groups in zoos as you said.
 
is the intention that rigo breed with G-Anne, Julia and Jumatano? i'd imagine that betsy and yuska are getting on in years. Yuska would be about 36 now?
 
maybe older - i thought yuska and rigo were the same age, and isn't he about 40?

yes no doubt the plan is he will breed with the younger females. also he has already produced young with yuska before.

betsy had a baby when she was in her 40's i believe. when i was there the other day i saw one gorilla who was quite fat and furry around her face and neck with a very brown back. i think that may have been betsy. she's an oldie but a goodie i say. ;)
 
kelvin said:
is the intention that rigo breed with G-Anne, Julia and Jumatano? i'd imagine that betsy and yuska are getting on in years. Yuska would be about 36 now?
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I I think the hope is to breed him with G.Anne and Julia (possibly Jumatano too) Both these females have only a single offspring in the population so far, whereas Betsi and Yuska, as well as being much older, are better represented.

My reservation is that these two may be reluctant to accept Rigo or allow him to mate them, (that's provided he's interested) as both have rather odd backgrounds.. I think the young Jumatano, who has had a more normal upbringing, could eventually prove valuable in this situation.
 
Melbourne Gorillas Ages.

Estimated dates of birth for the older wildcaught gorillas at Melbourne are;

Betsi- c.1957. makes her FIFTY this year. She is in the 'top fifty' list of the World's oldest captive Gorillas.

Rigo. c.1970. estimated age 37.
Yuska.c.1971.estimated age 36.

Jumatano was born 26/4/2000 at Melbourne so is just over 7 years old, not far of breeding age now.
 
jumantano is quite large now also, she certainly doesn't look like a baby gorilla anymore, more like a goofy adolescent...:)
 
Despite being handraised, she has since grown up with the other Gorillas, so she's actually a much better socialised animal than either her mother Julia(lived with chimps till c.8 years old) or G.Anne (handraised and isolated in her early life).

So I rate her with a strong chance of breeding- if she's allowed- currently Melbourne have a recommendation to produce(if they can) only two babies using Rigo. I have a feeling Jumatano will be involved in this somewhere along the line....
 
any chance of AI being used to overcome behavioural obstacles such as the case between rigo and yuska? the american population has had births from females younger than jumatano. binta jua from brookfield gave birth when she was 5 making her the second youngest gorilla mother in the american population. anyone know the youngest?
 
Yes, I think five is about the extreme lower limit for females to breed. Several aged six+ have given birth succesfully. There is some evidence to show that handreared females reach sexual maturity(i.e. begin cycling) earlier than mother-raised ones, for whom 8-9 is the more normal age.

regarding AI- despite the famous success at Melbourne, it still doesn't seem to have been perfected with Gorillas and so it isn't widely used.
 
The refurbishment of the gorilla grottos has been estimated at $200,000 (rather than $600,000). The FOTZ volunteers do attend updates one a month and their information is not 'rumour based'...and some volunteers are better than others.
 
....also not all volunteers attend the updates....unfortunately. Betsy was in her 30's when she had Buzandi/Batouri to Motaba. She was thought to be too old to breed/conceive and wasn't on any kind of contraception. But that was before she had to contend with Motaba.....or vice versa (?)

Was Betsy the gorilla equivalent to Mrs Robinson in an ape version of "The Graduate"? Motaba was a 'black back' at the time....and Buliman was the silverback of the group.

"here's to you, mrs robinson......."
 
its now thought female gorillas enter a menopause in their late thirties/early forties after which it becomes imposble for them to breed.

One female 'Juju' at Howletts in Uk is now 45 and had a baby about three years ago. She was also the very first female at Howletts to breed, back in 1975.
 
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