San Diego Park Zoo welcomes adorable baby gorilla girl born in a rare animal C-SECTION | Mail Online I am turning to fellow zoo chatters to answer this question for me. Also is there any information on how successful introducing a baby to mom and the troop after 12 days of separation can be? Does anyone know what drug was given to Imani to help her keep her milk? I had no idea this was even possible.
I had been following this story as San Diego Zoo have been posting updates on the baby and had also wondered how common and how successful this sort of birth/re-introduction is.
I have been checking out the C-sections. The first was Caesar at Los Angeles, born 1st June 1977. His mother, Ellie, had killed her previous two infants immediately after giving birth, so the C-section was performed and he was hand-reared. Ellie had another infant, Brutus, the following year and I presume the same procedure was used. Zuri at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo was born by C-section on 31st December 1996 because her mother, Juju, was losing blood. There was a reintroduction, but Juju was not a good mother. Zuri was hand-reared and sent to Toronto where she has raised a daughter. Kambera was born by C-section at Columbus Zoo on 19th February 1999, she was hand-reared for several months before being reared by a surrogate mother, who was actually her grandmother Lulu. Yakini was born by C-section on 28th November 1999 at Melbourne Zoo and was hand-reared. Bolingo at Busch Gardens was raised by his mother Kishina after being born by C-section on 18th November 2005. He was reintroduced to her after a few days - we can all hope that Imani will be equally successful in very similar circumstances. However it doesn't always go well. Female Acacia at North Carolina Zoo had a C-section on 7th July 2013, after being in labour for 24 hours. The infant was reintroduced to her and she was caring for it, but it was found dead in her arms on the 10th: she might have crushed it in the night. For some reason I haven't found any in Europe, except for the removal of a dead infant in Prague some years ago. I expect that there will have been some. Alan
Thank you so much for the information. Lets hope that Imani will continue to care properly for her baby. I have seen first hand her motherly instincts. Imani's sister, Azizi, had a baby boy named Frank, that she did not raise. Frank was "assisted raised" meaning he was given a bottle by the keepers but spent most of his time with the troop. I observed the reactions of the three of them when a very loud helicopter passed over their exhibit. Imani immediately covered Frank with her body while Azizi took off running. Azizi is now at Disney Animal Kingdom and I am hoping she will parent raise her next baby.
There has been a C-section in Apenheul, which was successful, the names of mother and male infant (which was named after the hospital, so will be something like Andreas) can be found in Apenheul books.
'Diana' at Bristol Zoo- her first infant 'Goliath', born in 1980, was a C-section birth (baby was large and stuck). Both mother and infant survived though Goliath was handraised. 'Nandi' at Jersey Zoo- At the end of her breeding life, she had two stillbirths one year apart in 1988 & 1989, the 1989 one became stuck and so an emergency C-section was done, and she had a hysterectomy at the same time.
I made a mistake, the gorilla in Apenheul was born in a hospital via Vacuum extraction, not C-section, and was named Lucas (after the Lucas Andreas hospital...)
