Should London Zoo Carry on Having Gorillas?

[Big Orange]

Wow, in recent years London Zoo has been lurching from one disaster to another with its cadre of Western Lowland Gorillas, with the latest fiasco being an ill tempered silverback male revealed as infertile shortly after he tragically killed a very cute baby gorilla called Tiny last month. Bad and powerful natural instincts in insecure male silverback gorillas who don't know their own strength are hard to predict, why didn't the keepers take away poor Tiny to hand rear him and not put him in unnecessary danger? Tiny's young father, Yaboah, had also died last year with a fairly mature silverback, Bobby, dying a while back in '08.

Looking after primates is tough and seeing a documentary about London Zoo recently, the keepers love the gorillas very much, but the recent fiasco with a impotent adult gorilla killing a valuable infant seems to be the result of poor planning/management combined with rotten luck. Also the two adult gorillas dying suddenly not so far apart could be down to a poor diet given by the zoo staff. In the long run I don't think urban zoos should be at the forefront at preserving endangered species such as sensitive and intelligent great apes, with London Zoo in particular doing a piss poor job at gorrilla conservation so-far.

[Sea Skimmer]

So solve bad conservation by giving up the attempt rather then improving it? Seems rather stupid unless you intend to bring something else equally endangered instead, which of course would just open the situation up for new and different problems. One couldn't say anything on the death of the adults without knowing the cause of death. Bad diet sounds unlikely, I'm not aware of Gorillas being super specialized eaters, unlike say Pandas, to the extent that poor feeding could kill one in a matter of months.

[Akhlut]

London Zoo could definitely do it if they got a bit more expertise in; if they worked in partnership with the Brookfield Zoo or the San Diego Zoo, they'd get a ton of expertise to help them out, since I don't think funding is that huge of a problem for the London Zoo.

[Simon_Jester]

I would say that London should prioritize better gorilla care. If this were a relatively minor zoo, sure, let their gorillas go elsewhere, but the zoo of a great world city should be willing to put in the effort to improve conditions.

And, of course, they may just have been the victims of bad luck.

[Broomstick]

Wow, in recent years London Zoo has been lurching from one disaster to another with its cadre of Western Lowland Gorillas, with the latest fiasco being an ill tempered silverback male revealed as infertile shortly after he tragically killed a very cute baby gorilla called Tiny last month. Bad and powerful natural instincts in insecure male silverback gorillas who don't know their own strength are hard to predict, why didn't the keepers take away poor Tiny to hand rear him and not put him in unnecessary danger?

How about... .because it's normal for baby gorillas to grow up with an adult male around? Should we bar adult human males from all contact with human babies because, after all, human males are dangerous primates?

On top of which, saying their instincts are "bad" is a value judgement that does not apply to animals. In addition, mothers of primates have been known to kill their own offspring, too. Basically, life is a risk. Unless there was something in Kesho's prior behavior to indicate he was a serious risk to younger gorillas this is not the zoo's fault. Arguably, if they continue to allow Kesho unrestricted access to youngsters that might be the zoo's fault, should another tragedy occur.

We don't really know what set off Kesho, do we? The article mentions Klinefelter's which, yes, is associated with a more placid temperament but that's on average, individuals differ. In point of fact, one of the SD.net members who happens to be a human with Klinefelter's has at times been one of our more aggressive debaters so whatever the average temperament there are exceptions, and situations where even someone who is pretty easy going could get vicious. Perhaps Kesho is an exception. Perhaps something else was a factor. We don't know. We may never know.

Tiny's young father, Yaboah, had also died last year with a fairly mature silverback, Bobby, dying a while back in '08.

Animals die in captivity because.... well, everything dies eventually. 25 is not as young for a gorilla as for a human, as gorillas only live about half as long as we do. So 25 for a gorilla is more like the 40's or 50's for a human being, and dying of a heart attack at that age, while young by today's standards, isn't as mysterious as someone half that age dying of one.

Unless you know the precise cause of death you can't really make a judgement as to whether there was mistreatment or neglect.

Also the two adult gorillas dying suddenly not so far apart could be down to a poor diet given by the zoo staff.

On what do you base that conclusion, that the animals had a poor diet? Gorillas aren't that hard to feed (well, they need a lot of food which gets into cost) and you could shop for them in any human grocery store. Yes, clearly, they need a balanced diet but frankly they're more likely to have that than the average human being these days.

In the long run I don't think urban zoos should be at the forefront at preserving endangered species such as sensitive and intelligent great apes, with London Zoo in particular doing a piss poor job at gorrilla conservation so-far.

Not sure I can agree with that - in the Chicago area both the Lincoln Park and Brookfield zoos have had great success with their great apes, spending tens of millions of dollars on upgrading their habitats for a more natural environment, keeping the apes in more natural groupings, successfully raising offspring, etc. and both would certainly qualify as urban zoos.

I don't know enough about the London Zoo to pass judgement on them.

[Zac Naloen]

The problem which he is alluding to with London Zoo is that it is really quite small all round and doesn't have the land for large natural enclosures (they are doing their best mind but, gorrilla enclosure looks to be about 20 x 10 metres from google maps). I would prefer if they moved all the large animals outside of the city to Whipsnade zoo, but if they do that I don't think Penguins and Meercats will be enough of an attraction to get visitors in. Without the Gorrillas London Zoo doesn't have a whole lot.

[Akhlut]

The problem which he is alluding to with London Zoo is that it is really quite small all round and doesn't have the land for large natural enclosures (they are doing their best mind but, gorrilla enclosure looks to be about 20 x 10 metres from google maps). I would prefer if they moved all the large animals outside of the city to Whipsnade zoo, but if they do that I don't think Penguins and Meercats will be enough of an attraction to get visitors in. Without the Gorrillas London Zoo doesn't have a whole lot.

Get rid of the meerkats and a few other plentiful animals that have relatively large habitats and expand the gorilla habitat, then. If it's feasible, annex any adjacent properties to increase the size of the habitat (although, I recognize that's probably nearly impossible in London proper). It might also be possible to do something like the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park are doing: create a gorilla habitat in Whipsnade Zoo that houses a large population of the gorillas, while housing a small group at the London Zoo. Hell, London Zoo can be housing for a group of bachelor males (blackbacks) that are sent to other zoos that need a new male for breeding while accepting new males into the bachelor group.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Wow, in recent years London Zoo has been lurching from one disaster to another with its cadre of Western Lowland Gorillas, with the latest fiasco being an ill tempered silverback male revealed as infertile shortly after he tragically killed a very cute baby gorilla called Tiny last month. Bad and powerful natural instincts in insecure male silverback gorillas who don't know their own strength are hard to predict, why didn't the keepers take away poor Tiny to hand rear him and not put him in unnecessary danger? Tiny's young father, Yaboah, had also died last year with a fairly mature silverback, Bobby, dying a while back in '08.

Looking after primates is tough and seeing a documentary about London Zoo recently, the keepers love the gorillas very much, but the recent fiasco with a impotent adult gorilla killing a valuable infant seems to be the result of poor planning/management combined with rotten luck. Also the two adult gorillas dying suddenly not so far apart could be down to a poor diet given by the zoo staff. In the long run I don't think urban zoos should be at the forefront at preserving endangered species such as sensitive and intelligent great apes, with London Zoo in particular doing a piss poor job at gorrilla conservation so-far.

<Elitist=Prick>And this is what happens when lay-people talk about keeping difficult animals in captivity</Elitist>

<Elitist= Pontif>Alright, here is the deal. Setbacks happen whenever you keep and try to breed animals in captivity. It does not matter what the species, you are going to get fighting, freak disease outbreak etc. It is completely and totally unavoidable unless you keep individual animals in isolation, and then you are just being hideously cruel to them i they are social like gorillas.

Life, as Broomstick said, is a risk. In the wild, Gorillas will kill offspring. It is normal behavior for them. Many primates commit infanticide if they are unsure of paternity, will hold offspring hostage to secure mating opportunities (yes, that is right, they will say "fuck me, or I kill the kid"). So, when you hold them in captivity and try to get them to mate, you have to replicate as well as possible the conditions under which they WILL mate in the wild. That means having a silverback and a few subordinate males around, a number of females and offspring. Gorillas NEED the social cues from adult males in order to develop socially and emotionally. Without them, a male gorilla will have all the male instincts, but no social context under which to act upon them. This is as important for other apes as it is for human beings. If they are denied access to adult males, they will grow up... for lack of a better word, crazy. You simply have no choice but to risk periodic infanticide, even from an animal with Kleinfelters.

Could they stand to increase the enclosure size? Yeah. Would it help? Maybe not. However, it is open air, and I dont know if they can shift them inside during cooler months. They could probably stand to enclose the place in glass, and take the opportunity to build multi-level features to take advantage of the Y axis a bit better. As for diet, a very much doubt that. Zoos have been keeping gorillas for a LONG time. Their dietary needs are some of the best known of any primate (MAYBE Chimps and Rhesus Monkeys are known better) to the point that you can probably put a Gorilla Nutrition Label on the back of a box of fruit loops. And, if the diet was not proper, death would not have been sudden. Malnutrition is easy to diagnose. More than likely, we are looking at a viral infection for that one.
</Elitist>

[Big Orange]

Yeah, I agree that on second thoughts a bad diet being behind the somewhat untimely death of Bobby and the much younger Yaboah dying is not necessarily the case - 25 year old Bobby dying is akin to a human dying in late middle age (55 to 65 years old) however Yaboah was only 11 years old and died only a couple of years later, which gives more pause. I guess the lack of excercise or stimulation in the cramped London enclosure (as highlighted by Zac Naloen) seems the most plausible cause and there's one reason why mountain gorillas are not in enclosures (they're allegedly much more prone to dying quickly from stress and lack of stimulation than lowlanders in closed spaces).

Yes, I'm already aware that insecure male gorillas killing babies they did not sire is common enough and that's one legitimate miscalculation the London Zoo staff made, with them getting seriously criticised by Professor Volker Sommer, an expert evolutionary anthropologist. But from what I can recall from the ITV documentary not only having no dominant male could affect the mental/emotional development of young gorillas, it's very hard on the small groupe of adult female gorillas as well and without a dominant male they were starting to act abnorminally (with chronic hair pulling). And there's been a case of a biological gorilla father killing their sired baby in captivity and also a silverback gorilla who was tolerant, sometimes even nurturing towards unrelated infants (hence why socially/emotionally complex gorillas seem more unpredictable than lions, who are far more instinctively ruthless and thus predictable when committing infantcide).

I wouldn't say shut down London Zoo right away, but if possible city zoos should run ape enclosures more along the lines of the Aspinall Foundation and Monkey World (one way windows could make a difference).

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yeah, I agree that on second thoughts a bad diet being behind the somewhat untimely death of Bobby and the much younger Yaboah dying is not necessarily the case - 25 year old Bobby dying is akin to a human dying in late middle age (55 to 65 years old) however Yaboah was only 11 years old and died only a couple of years later, which gives more pause. I guess the lack of excercise or stimulation in the cramped London enclosure (as highlighted by Zac Naloen) seems the most plausible cause and there's one reason why mountain gorillas are not in enclosures (they're allegedly much more prone to dying quickly from stress and lack of stimulation than lowlanders in closed spaces).

Mammals do not die from stress. They get immunosupressed, then they die from a disease. A disease which can be treated. Either way, even when not stressed, animals die from disease. You have to compare the survival rate in the wild with the survival rate in captivity before you can say a damn thing.

No zoo in the world just leaves their animals in a cage bored. Not even the reptiles. Gorillas have plenty of toys, the keepers play games with them, train them etc. Hell, even Komodo Dragons get target trained and petted (yes, petted. Captive dragons are a lot like cats in their personality.)

Mountain gorillas may have problems with disease in enclosures which is due to stress related immunosupression, but lowlands dont have that problem as severely. Additionally, this enclosure is not that small. For the number of gorillas they have, it is not bad. The issue with not having a real dominant male however, COULD well be an issue.

And there's been a case of a biological gorilla father killing their sired baby in captivity and also a silverback gorilla who was tolerant, sometimes even nurturing towards unrelated infants (hence why socially/emotionally complex gorillas seem more unpredictable than lions, who are far more instinctively ruthless and thus predictable when committing infantcide)

I would not call it instinctively ruthless. They just have a different social system. A silverback becomes silverback by being nice to the females. They are the dominant male for a reason, and part of that reason is not just beating the shit out of the other males. The subordinate males use different tactics to obtain copulations.