Gorilla Aunties and their Mischief

I got to see a gorilla baby theft

in action at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. Mother Bana was lounging high up in the hammock with daughter Patty. Another gorilla stole up and grabbed little Patty, only six months old at the time. Off ran this interloping gorilla auntie, with Bana in hot pursuit, holding onto baby Patty with all her might. I do not know the Chicago gorillas well enough to know which aunt this was, but Bana chased her all the way down the tree, across the enclosure, and up a climbing structure. Mother Gorilla Bana confronted that auntie and took her baby back and all was well.  Gorilla enthusiasts will often use the term auntie to refer to a lady gorilla who has no baby of her own, even though that adult gorilla may not actually be a sister of the mother in question. Often these lady gorillas are very doting and sweet in their relations with the babies in the troop. But not always. Sometimes a gorilla lady who is a mother of her own child,  gets a little meddlesome!

Left to Right: Jamani, Bomassa, Olympia, Apollo

Recently, I photographed Olympia grabbing the arm of Jamani's son Bomassa. This happens all the time. Olympia keeps trying to part mother and son. Long time readers of this blog will recall some fifty posts back where Olympia took and kept Bomassa for nearly a week. He was very small then. But now he is bigger, stronger and a little more rambunctious. And he bites! One wonders what Olympia is thinking at this point as she continues to grab Bomassa away. These boys are getting too big to keep under wraps. What would Olympia do, were she able to grab Jamani's son away once again?

A big thank you to all our readers who took advantage of our Mother's Day special and ordered prints of Bomassa, Apollo and their troop. Watch this space for future discount codes.

A Visit from the Other Side of the Country

Announcing Zoo Baby Blog's First Ever Guest Post!

Post and pictures by Delbert Warner

Last fall, Windy Sawczyn posted the most adorable pictures of baby gorillas with their mothers on Google+.  She then intrigued me with the Zoo Baby Theft Caper informing those of us reading her post of how Olympia had stolen Bomassa from Jamani.  It was scandalous!  Since you are reading this, you know the whole story and the events that have occurred since then.  If not, go back and catch up.

Bomassa holding up his sweetie feeties

I'll take minor credit for this blog.  You see, I had been following along with another blog that Windy wrote and I am a fan of her writing style and her photography.  So I encouraged Windy to start a blog about the gorillas at the North Carolina Zoo. Luckily for us she did.
        I have enjoyed learning all about this wonderful gorilla family and have been captivated by their faces.  The babies are indeed adorable, but I have to say that the adults have strong personalities and expressions of their own.  I live on the opposite side of the US, so for all this time, I have been an admirer from afar.  Until last week.

Apollo mimics his mom Olympia

I happened to be in North Carolina on a work assignment and found a window of opportunity to go to the zoo for a short visit last Friday.  The weather was sunny, but still pretty cold this time of year. That's OK, I don't mind the cold.  I had to travel two hours to the zoo and two hours back to the airport that day leaving me only a couple of hours to be there.  So I contacted Windy to see if she had any tips to share helping me to utilize my time wisely.  She provided me with two important pieces of information.  The first was that I was visiting on Good Friday and the zoo was expected to have a huge attendance that Easter weekend.  The second piece of information was that the gorillas would not be allowed out until is was around 45 degrees outside.  So I wavered about my decision to go, but Friday morning I got up early and made the commitment.

Bomassa mimics his mom Jamani

Still coming out of winter, it was a relatively beautiful two hour drive there while I anxiously kept my eye on the rental car's outside thermometer.  For the first hour and a half, the temperature stayed between 28 to 30 degrees.  Still too cold, but I still had hope.  I also hoped there would be a decent parking spot.  I don't remember being so excited to go to a zoo since I was a young boy.  I was very excited during the last few miles as the temperature warmed to just over 40 degrees.  I arrived at around 9:30 AM to find plenty of parking available.  (I'm sure there were lots of parents still juggling their kids in order to arrive later).

I walked quickly to the ticket booth, passing as many families as I politely could and purchased my entry.  After a quick trip to the restroom, (it was a two hour drive) I headed straight away for the gorillas.  The expanse of the zoo amazed me.  It was beautiful there and I can only imagine how much more so it will be in the summer.  I was hoping the gorillas would be out when I reached them,  and there they were!  I mean right there up against the glass with me on the other side.  Both Olympia and Jamani were there with their boys Apollo and Bomassa.  All of them were very active.  If the glass were not there, I would have been able to reach out at arms length and touch them all.

The father, Nkosi was on the exercise structure when I arrived, but he wandered around a lot and came up to the the viewing area from time to time for a visit.  It was incredible!  I cannot put into words what this experience was like for me.  I encourage you to do the same someday.  Keep in mind that that these boys are growing, so it would not be wise to postpone your own visit for too long.  You may miss out on the adorableness of their young age.

There is a future option.  There is another pregnant mother in the compound.  Her name is Acacia.  I think she is due in August.  She seemed to like to be alone.  She did wander by me at another viewing window and then went over to a pond, bent over, and drank.

I'm not a big fan of zoos, but I have to say that this was the best zoo experience I have ever had.  And Olympia, she is still at it!  I saw her grab at Bomassa more than once during the few short hours I spent there.

---Delbert Warner

Acacia keeping to herself by the wall, Nkosi front right, walking behind Olympia and Apollo

Baby Bomassa Gorilla would love to have you follow him on  Twitter

Gorilla Caught Trying to Steal Baby Again

Olympia the Mom Gorilla has been caught in the act. Yes, she is at it again, she apparently wants to get Bomassa away from his mother Jamani. You've been reading here about the five day siege which began with zookeepers arriving early one morning to find that Olympia had both gorilla babies and Jamani had none. No information was available as to exactly what had happened. Nothing had been caught on tape and park rangers  had not seen the event.

Olympia , left, with Apollo on her back, grabs Bomassa's leg

Gorilla moms will occasionally abandon their babies, so there certainly was the possibility that Olympia was only helping out after Jamani had decided she was unable to care for her son. But no, as we saw, Jamani was only too happy to get Bomassa back and in fact, nursed him constantly for hours. Nor do these photos, taken this week, show a mother who might have engaged in any willing surrender.

As always, larger versions of these photographs and others,  are available for viewing at the Zoo Baby Prints Gallery.

Above,  we see Olympia facing off with Jamani, and reaching around to grasp the tiny arm of sweet Bomassa. As I was photographing, she grabbed more and more of that arm. Below, we see Jamani fighting off the attack in her gentle way with her left arm pushing away Olympia's right. Jamani, bigger than Olympia, is nonetheless a very docile being, while Olympia seems a little more nervous, and asserts her dominance constantly. Olympia is the daughter of the famous Willie B of the Atlanta Zoo who took the role there of strong leader of his troop, after having been alone for the first 27 years of his captivity. Maybe she inherited some of that spunk. Hopefully Jamani will keep standing up for herself and her baby Bomassa.

Jamani, right,  presses down on Olympia's arm, as Olympia's large hand grasps Bomassa's leg

How the Mom Gorilla Got her Baby Back

Here's the resolution of the baby theft incident. After Olympia took baby gorilla Bomassa away from Jamani, she kept him (as well as her own son, Apollo) for a full five days before the zookeepers were able to settle on a decision as to how best to proceed. Recapturing the baby manually was out of the question, as was attempting to shoot Olympia with a dart. The answer injection with a tranquilizer.    They went ahead and tried it and Olympia drifted into a happy slumber.  Zookeepers were able to wrest Bomassa away from his usurper and hand him back to his birth mother. Luckily, Jamani was still producing milk so Bomassa can now continue to nurse.

See more gorilla baby pics and buy prints.

Why did all this occur? Why did Olympia take that baby away from Jamani? It is important to understand that in zoo management, efforts are made to acclimate young  females to mothers already raising babies.  This way the young lady gorillas get to observe motherhood and learn how it's done. So way before it was decided that Olympia and Jamani should be given the opportunity to mate with  Nkosi,  both females had lived in zoos where they observed the birth, the nursing, and the raising of baby gorillas.

As it happens, Olympia had done her observations in a zoo where twins were born, so she was used to seeing one  mom carrying around and nursing two babies at once. As the head honcho (she is the dominant female at the NC Zoo), perhaps she thought she ought to have both babies!   Jamani, on the other hand,  had lived among moms who were happy to pass their babies back and forth to each other; that was normal to her, it is what she was used to seeing. So maybe when Olympia took Bomassa away from Jamani, Jamani did not think it was any big deal. She may have assumed that Olympia would hand the baby back to her at any minute.  We may never know for sure. Anyway, now that Jamani and Bomassa have been reunited,  both babies are being observed closely and seem to be doing fine.

Above we get a rare glimpse of Olympia. She had run out of the warm heated area on the first cold day of autumn to get some of that tasty lettuce you see her holding. Look how tenderly she cradles her son Apollo as she runs back to cuddle up again in the straw piled under the heaters.

No Dice on the Darts

When we left off last time, we told you Olympia had stolen a gorilla baby. Yes, Olympia, the dominant female in the Forest Glade enclosure at the NC Zoo, and mother to her own baby boy gorilla, had grabbed baby boy Bomassa and was feeding and keeping him as well her own sweet Apollo. She was doing a great job, mind you, but had zero interest in giving him back! Zoo personnel wanted to reunite Bomassa with his mother Jumani, seen here munching on lettuce, but knew that the standard route of shooting an animal with a tranquilizing dart was not advisable in this particular case. 

Jamani holds Bomassa while dining, just
a few days before her baby was stolen from her.

       Why was the tranquilizing dart a bad idea, to be avoided at all cost? It's because a good strong dose of medicine would be required to put Olympia to sleep long enough for zookeepers to remove that baby. Should Olympia make a sudden turn at the time of the dart shooting, that dart full of heavy duty sleep-inducing-stuff might just hit one of the tiny boy gorillas. At just about nine pounds, either baby would be overwhelmed by that kind of a shock, with possible fatal results. Therefore use of a dart was completely out of the picture. The zookeepers had to keep thinking, considering, and consulting; meanwhile Olympia was keeping both babies for many days running.

Two Mothers and their Gorilla Babies

Gorilla moms tend to hang out together. Here we see Jamani  holding her baby, Bomassa. Jamani is the larger of the two moms; seated behind her we see Olympia. She's got her baby cradled in her lap as well,  but we just can't see him. Olympia seems to be more private about motherhood than does Jamani, so it is a little trickier for zoo visitors to get a look at her son.

Olympia sits peacefully  behind Jamani

Big trouble erupted a few days after this photo was taken.  One Friday morning, the zookeepers came in and noticed something  new. Olympia was cradling BOTH baby boy gorillas.  This put the zoo into quite a state of affairs. Both moms are nursing, both babies need their milk. The zoo wanted to get Bomassa away from Olympia and back into the rightful hands of his mother. This needed to happen fairly quickly too. As nursing mothers are aware, you can't go too long without nursing your baby, or your body just stops producing milk. Luckily,  Olympia was happily nursing and caring for both babies,  so Bomassa was in no imminent danger.