Warm embrace Infant gorilla has surrogate mum
AN infant gorilla that has been hand-reared at Bristol Zoo Gardens now has a surrogate mum.
Western lowland gorilla Hasani, who was born in August last year, was cared for by keepers after his birth mother, Kala, struggled to look after him.
It meant a six-strong team taking it in turns to be with him around the clock for seven months, during which he needed feeding up to eight times a day.
Two months ago keepers re-introduced him to his mother hoping that she would be able to care for him.
Lynsey Bugg, curator of mammals at Bristol Zoo Gardens, said: “We really wanted to get them back together and give Kala another chance to look after him. Once Hasani was sufficiently mobile and physically ready for it, we felt the time was right to try them together again.
“But despite Kala being very keen to begin with, over time she continued to show the worrying signs of not being able to cope.
“We really tried everything we could every day over several weeks but in the end we had to accept that it wasn’t working.”
After a week’s break keepers turned to 16-year-old Kera to see if she could take on the role of surrogate mum.
Lynsey said the introductions began with Hasani and Kera limited to touching through an open partition that
Hasani only was able to move through. Keepers stayed close by and on hand but were able to progress to giving them full access to each other after a few days.
Eventually they left the two of them together and watched on TV monitors from a different part of the gorilla house, ready to step in if things did not go well.
Lynsey said: “It is a question of using experience and judgement to decide how long to leave them.”
It is the first time Kera has looked after an infant. She had a daughter, Afia, five years ago by caesarean section because she had potentially lifethreatening pre-eclampsia. But she was so ill that another gorilla, Romina, became a surrogate mum to Afia.
Lynsey, who is an advisor on surrogacy for the gorillas’ EAZA Ex-situ Programme (EEP), said: “Although Kera had no rearing experience, she is very intelligent and we have been able to nurture her behaviour.
“She has seen several other females rear their youngsters and so had a good foundation on which to build on. All the way through hand-rearing, Kera was keen to spend time with Hasani and the two always seemed to get on very well.”
Hasani is now spending every day and night with Kera and making good progress.
Lynsey said: “This is a fantastic success. We have taken a young gorilla that would otherwise have died and turned him around and he is back with his fellow gorillas inside of a year. It is an amazing achievement.”