Gorilla Design

Yes Apenhuel's outdoor island is great. I was there for my birthday this year on April 3rd.

As usual I was there right at opening and headed straight to the gorilla house. I spent about 1 hour just watching them. I agree that the space is small with the traditional concrete floor. I can understand that in such a place it is very problematic to have anything else. There was straw scattered around and l am sure that such an establishment would have many enrichment devices used. I just did not see any others except a few Hessian sacks.

I do believe that it is how they use such an enclosure not necessarily the size that is the issue with such a space. A well adjusted silverback and his family can be reasonably content in such a space. I know it's not ideal! Frankfurt is a great example of this. There daily feeding/Enrichment in a small space is without peer.

I personally belive that the training of elephants in zoos under the guise of enrichment is just unfourtunate. As any animal in captivity provided with a appropriate family grouping needs little enrichment.

I wish l could use the gorilla names! They have a new Silverback in there group. [I bet you know his name and who his parents are ;]. Well it was fascinating as he was obviously an inexperienced guy. The House as l am sure you are aware is small but it also has many compartments with doors that can be half opened allowing the smaller Gorillas access butt not the Silverback.

I was surprised to see a few of the gorillas had very obvious bite marks on them! Had actually not seen this before on more than 1 gorilla at a time. Seems that there is allot of tension in the group!! The Silverback was not with the group later in the day. It seems that his introduction is a slow process. As he learns how to be a Silverback. The dominant female and l think her 2nd in line are obviously not accepting of his arrival.

Later in the day, l went to the Gorilla ampetheatre. It did bother me that the Gorillas were more or less having a "chimp tea party". The paying public seemed to love it and it gave the keepers a chance to educate the public.

The outdoor exhibit is fantastic although it would be great to add a high climbing structure to allow the gorillas to survey they domain. They do it seems appreciate a view! Sharing the space with the Patas monkeys is a great enrichment. Apparently any new member introduced to the group soon learns that the Patas monkey is far quicker.Apparentey the Patas monkey night quarters are ridicoulsy small! They do however only spend a couple of weeks locked away 24/7.

In the forceable future they will not be building a new gorilla house unfortunately! As the renovating or replacing the present one is not a priority of the zoo.

I would be interested to hear what happened to the previous silverback?
You don't happen to know if the story behind Apenhuel's creation has ever been written in a book in english?

I do know that the transfer of a gorilla group to Sydney Australia was the last sale of gorillas. As the director actually owned some of the gorillas.The last privatley owned goillas in the zoo world l think.

Stuart

 

When l visited Bristol zoo in the 80"s. I will never forget my suprise that they had some of there females on the pill. Not that they were worried about the haveing babies. They did not belive that there were enough zoos at the time to house gorillas!

 

All of Chester zoo's female chimps have been on contraceptives for the last few years. The odd births in that time have been due to accident.

 

That was partially a stunt the press got hold of and very ironic as they actually had an atrocious breeding record at that time (Barcelona were similarly bad) with very many births but nearly all the infants dying within a few weeks or months. One Bristol female had ten births(including stillbirths & miscarriages) yet none of her infants ever survived longer than c. two years. Three other females at Bristol had a similarly unsuccessful breeding history but with less births. Poor husbandry and/or diet plus a total lack of enrichment probably accounted for this as nearly all other zoos were successfully breeding young at that time. Bristol's husbandry has changed considerably since those days and their current gorillas are breeding normally.

Quite a few zoos keep some or all of their female Gorillas on contraceptives nowadays to keep a manageable & balanced population- in Australia both Melbourne & Taronga Park have done so recently.

 

1. Apenheul may not use a lot of enrichment as the Gorillas live a very natural life when outside- maybe they bring in branches etc to the night quarters.

2. The new Silverback is called Jambo and came from Krefeld Zoo in Germany. He replaced the original male 'Bongo' who died the previous year. Jambo had never been in an outside enclosure before arriving at Apenheul. Settling in was a difficult process for him with some of the older females not accepting him straight away- hence the bitemarks you saw.

3. I think the public feeding is very good- its not like a 'teaparty' scenario but is a good chance for education & photography. All they're doing is getting the group to all stay in the one area for a while. Many zoos do public feeding like that nowadays.

4. I'm sorry to hear they aren't enlarging the inside area- I thought they were. In my opinion that's a priority for them- this indoor house is very small & cramped and its almost substandard by now.

5. The original Silverback was called 'Bongo'. He fathered many babies with the older females in the group but died a year or so ago.

6. All of Aspinall's gorillas are still 'privately owned' So are those at many other zoos where they were originally paid for from animal dealers etc
Most- but not all- have now made them available for exchange programmes but they still effectively own them I think.

 

Hi Pertinax,

Yes the Aspinal gorillas would effectively still be privately owned. I guess the point i was meaning to make was that. Somebody had put a dollar value onto a gorilla and that it was available 4 sale. My experience would be something the Aspinall's would never do.

I think that after there experience with UENO zoo. There beautiful silverback Biju dying in 1999 in very suspicious circumstances. He had dramatic weight loss in the months before his death by suffocation. They are hesitant to have any of there gorillas going to other zoo's. The UENO zoo still has the audacity to display a picture of the Aspinall collection and suggest that they are still in cooperation with them.I don't keep up to date with the movements of gorillas. Has Aspinalls sent many of there Gorillas in the past 8 years to other zoos? This could explain your conclusion of over crowding.


When l visited UENO zoo l was very disappointed. A big city zoo with what seemed like a big attendance so most probably in a good financial situation. New bear exhibits that all had viewing points that looked down on the bears in very small spaces. A small mammal house that was just trying to show so many species and giving none a decent amount of space. Also Meerkats kept in an indoor enclosure about 10ft by 6 feet. With a very sad little meerkat still performing his strong instinctual behavior of being lookout. Over a mass of people surrounding his small home. The gorilla enclosure looked appealing butt had got it wrong in so many ways.

All keepers l talk to about public feeding are all against it.

Hope you are well.

Stuart

 

I know what you meant about 'privately -owned', relatively few zoos 'buy or sell' gorillas nowadays even if they still own them.
Since Biju was sent to Ueno Zoo, Howletts have sent the following Gorillas to other collections, not sure of the exact transfer conditions but probably a permanent loan basis with some offspring being returned to Howletts.

1.0 (silverback) to Belfast Ireland. May be returned to PL. as he has not bred.

0.2. to Beauval Zoo France.(both breeding)

1.2 to St Martin La Pleine. France.(either 2 or all 3 breeding)

4.0 (bachelor group) to Indonesia(can't remember where-Zoo Negara?)

There is a bit of overcrowding in the breeding groups, particulary Koulliou's and Djangou's. The handraised babies nowadays are sent out to Africa for rehabilitation so they don't contribute to that situation. And I don't think there are any plans to build any more Gorilla enclosures at present.

 

You do know your gorillas!!

 

Not in North America, I don't....

I obviously know the UK ones best, the European(includes Australia) fairly well but America's population I've lost track of nowadays.

 

Welcome Zooman

Hi
I have only been a meber of the forum for a week but am having a great time . Have just enjoyed reading all the postings following your introduction .

I have seen most of the UK gorillas in the last 40 years starting with Guy at R. Park and the original Bristol animals . My favourite collection by far is the Howletts set-up and have spent many a happy hour watching the gorilla families there , including seeing John Aspinall visiting them .

My gorilla regret was my only visit to Cologne , I think summer 1978 , looking forward to seeing the mountain gorillas , only to be told by a non-English speaking keeper that they were 'kaput' . Shame . There were 2 baby lowland gorillas there instead .

I remember the Eastern lowland pair at Chester and last year saw the 2 females at Antwerp .

 

1. I think I saw 'Congo' & 'Josephine' before I saw 'Guy', but I am not sure... When I first saw 'Guy' I remember there was still a very dirty glass or plastic screen shielding his outside cage from visitors so he was difficult to see..

2. I visited Cologne twice when the Mountain gorillas were there, first soon after they arrived, and second, shortly before they died- that was a very sad visit as they were virtually moribund in the enclosure.

3. Mukisi & Noelle at Chester were naturally the first 'mountain' gorillas I saw and I've also visited Antwerp a long while ago when they had their 2.2. eastern lowlands, but not recently.

4. My favourite UK Gorilla is 'Salome' at Bristol, on account of her interesting history and parentage. At last Bristol have a small successful group. Howletts have the most active and interesting groups obviously though because of their size and social dynamics.

5. My biggest Gorilla regret was arriving at Columbus Ohio(USA) to visit the zoo at the end of a long trip round the states, only to find the zoo was miles away from the city and as we had no spare money left we couldn't visit it... aaargh!

 

Thanks so much

Thank you all so much for this thread. I read today of the death of the oldest Gorilla in captivity and it reminded me of Stefi....my all-time favorite! I lived in the Black Forest in the late 70s and went to the Basel Zoo as often as possible. I spent hours watching him. It's been many years since going and don't even know if he's alive any longer. He was so beautiful. I have some wonderful pictures of him from then.

Thanks again.

 

Stefi died in 1981 - otherwise, he would be 59 years old now... after his death, Pepe became the silverback of the Basle group but he didn`t bred very often. Stefi and Achilla are both no longer alive but they have so many children and grand-children everywhere, they have left a BIG trace in the captive gorilla populations around the world.

 

You were lucky to live so near Basel...

Stefi(or Steffi or Stephi) was indeed a beautiful male. I visited Basel several times during his lifetime. His distinctive looks were passed to his two younger offspring -Migger(male) & Quarta (female) but not to the older two- Goma & Jambo. Quarta and her own daughter Faddama both still live in Basel's group and both of them look very like Steffi.

 

Thank you VERY much. I suppose, considering that he died in 1981, I must have last seen him just before he died, as I returned to the Basel zoo on a trip to Freiburg i. Breisgau in 1981. He was truly magnificent. I am sad that he is gone, but I feel so fortunate to have "known" him.

 

I wrote this on an earlier page of this thread. Following Jenny's death at Dallas, 'Colo' is now one of the two oldest Gorillas in the world. Its remarkable how similar-looking she is to Stefi- I feel sure they were 'unofficially' related in the way I described above.

 

Hi Stuart

Welcome to ZooBeat and I have just joined myself. I too have a passion for gorillas and chimps. My nearest places of obsession (!) are Howletts and Port Lympne and London Zoo and have been visiting those for the last twenty years as well as Europe. Would love to know about the gorilla or chimp groups near you.

Welcome.

Sandra

 

hi GF

Hi Sandra, welcome to zoobeat.

It is a great place to keep current with what is going on in the zoo world. Personally l log in almost every day, just for a read. Posting a comment every now and then.

I can tell you l was recentley at Sydney zoo. The gorilla group there imported from Apenhaul is going very well. Seem to be producing allot of males though.
The enclosure although on the small side for my liking is holding up very well. It seems that the gorillas prefer to spend most of there time resting in the indoor public viewing area. Although the keeper talks and feeding are very informative and the gorillas are always active when food is offered.


The world trully is a more interesting place because of Howletts and Port Lympne. I have visited both many times over the years. Always impressed that they had it right [enclosure design] from the very start.

 

Hi Stuart,

Good to hear from you and yes I am so enjoying the site, it is so fantastic to find a place to hear all the news from around the world. It is great for me as I have been boring friends and family for years, they have been kind enough to listen, but great to know that there are kindred spirits out there!

I did visit Apenhaul but quite some time ago, so would be very interested to know what size the group that came over to Sydney. Very interesting that they seem to spend time in the indoor area. The bachelor group at Port Lympne (as I am sure you saw when there) have a huge outdoor space but are often found in the more covered enclosure and go to the big space when they are having the "chat", meet the gorilla sessions and then go back in! So many city zoos suffer from lack of space. It is I guess the usual problem of the balance of accommodating the public and making an enriched space for the animals. I don't know whether you have seen the new gorilla enclosure at London Zoo but there is controversy as it's design. It is certainly better and bigger than before but still needs more climbing structure and quiet spaces I think!

So off to work, hope things are going well down with you.

All the Best,

Sandra

 

You'll probably realise from reading all these threads- its apparent that the preference for Gorillas to be under cover/indoors most of the time is Worldwide- it happens everywhere where the outside area is open to the sky....