Orphaned chimpanzee finds home in Oklahoma City Zoo

Ruben's mother, Rukiya, died of a heart condition shortly after Ruben's birth at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Fla. Attempts to integrate Ruben into other troops failed before he was brought to Oklahoma City in July.

By Matt Patterson | Published: September 17, 2012   

 

Ruben the chimpanzee's first months in this world have been anything but easy.
His mother, Rukiya, died of a heart condition shortly after his birth at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Fla. His biological father was deemed too intense for him. And another female chimp at Busch Gardens in Florida also was too much for the pint-size primate.
“Our two females liked him but none of them picked him up, neither of them were that interested,” Lowry Park curator Lee Ann Rottman said. “His father wanted to play all the time and Ruben just wasn't ready for that.”
Rottman said one of the saddest aspects of the early part of Ruben's life was that his mother had already been a surrogate to another baby chimp.
“We had very high hopes for her as a mom,” Rottman said.
But the now 8-month-old chimp looks to have found a home at the Oklahoma City Zoo. Ruben arrived along with three handlers in July on a private jet donated by a supporter of the Lowry Park Zoo.
Ruben has found a surrogate mother in Kito, who has never had any offspring of her own. Ruben was introduced to Kito and Zoe and the rest of their troop after three days of monitoring by zoo staff.
Kito was chosen for the role as surrogate mom because of her success playing the role of surrogate to Siri, another chimpanzee at the zoo. Siri was brought to the Oklahoma City Zoo after her mother's breast milk was found to be nutritionally deficient and could not meet the growing chimp's needs.
“We chose Kito because she has the patience of a saint,” Oklahoma City Zoo curator Laura Bottaro said. “We knew this from how she handled Siri.”
Kito and Ruben were a natural fit, Bottaro said. But Ruben had to be cared for around the clock after his arrival. Baby chimps need to be held at all times, Bottaro said. Staffers at the zoo wore special shirts designed to mimic the hair of chimpanzees.
“The transition from humans can be uncomfortable for the infant because they're not sure they fit in,” Bottaro said. “Once they fit in, they're in.”
No guarantee
Curator Robin Newby said the hierarchies of chimpanzee troops can be complex. And even though Kito had been a successful surrogate before, there was no guarantee it would work again.
“It is very strict and complex,” Newby said. “They feel the need to keep individuals in check at all times. There's a lot of demonstrations either vocally or physically to accomplish that.”

Kito showed off her experience rearing infants almost immediately. When it was bedtime, her technique to keep Ruben near her was the same she had used for Siri. “Her strategy is to gather all of the nice bedding material each night, things like hay and wood wool, which is shredded wood,” Bottaro said. “She puts that stuff around her. She never forced him. She waited for him to come to her. She was saying to him, ‘Unless you want to sleep on a hard floor, you have to be in my vicinity.'”
With the addition of Ruben, the zoo now has nine chimpanzees in two troops. Ruben even bonded quickly with Mwami, the dominant male in his troop. Mwami is protective of Ruben. They're not quite father and son, but more like nephew and fun uncle. Mwami often pats Ruben's head and incites him into play by doing a dance in front of him.
“The one concern I had is this infant was a male and the other two we've had to pair with surrogates were females,” Bottaro said.
“Sometimes in the wild, if the dominant male is not the biological father, that can be a problem. But that didn't happen.”
A ‘true boy'
Even as Ruben clings to the security of adults, he does venture off on his own. Rottman said at Lowry Park, Ruben was rambunctious and a “true boy” who loved to eat.
He has continued on that path in Oklahoma City.
“For a youngster at his age he's very independent,” Newby said. “He'll go back to his surrogate mom for a little check-in and then he's off playing with the dominant male.”
Ruben will remain out of public view until he is fully integrated with all of the zoo's chimps. But that day is coming soon, Bottaro said. And when it does it will be the final step in his journey that took him from Florida to central Oklahoma. It also highlights the cooperation between zoos. It was painful for Rottman to give up Ruben, but she knew it was for the best.
“The staff here truly loved him,” Rottman said. “But we knew this was the right decision and we had so much faith in the staff at Oklahoma City because they've done this before. It is a truly wonderful situation he's in now and we couldn't be more pleased and thankful for that.”

NEWS - BABY MONKEY DIES IN FALL AT ATLANTA ZOO

Baby monkey dies in fall at Zoo Atlanta

 

By Associated Press

For the AJC

A newborn golden lion tamarin at Atlanta's zoo has died.


Zoo Atlanta said the 4-day old monkey died Wednesday after an accidental fall. It was one of three infants born to 5-year-old Robin Saturday. Another infant died shortly after the birth.
Infant mortality isn't uncommon for the small monkeys, which weigh only around 2 ounces at birth and grow to be about the size of a squirrel. Even short falls can be fatal for tiny newborns, zoo officials said.
The zoo says the remaining infant appears to be doing well, officials said.
Golden lion tamarins are native to Brazil's Atlantic coastal rainforests. The wild golden lion tamarin population stood at just 250 in the mid-1980s. It now numbers more than 1,600 after a network of zoos successfully reintroduced captive-born tamarins to the wild.

NEWS - PUBLIC SUBMITS NAME SUGGESTIONS FOR ZOOS NEWEST ADDITION

Public submits name suggestions for zoo's newest addition 

 

February 20, 2012 4:45 PM

ANGEL McCURDY / Daily News

GULF BREEZE — The number of name suggestions coming in for the newborn gorilla is too high to count, says Gulf Breeze Zoo director Kayte Wanko.
“I think we’ve gotten about a million and a half,” she joked. “We’ve decided to take 20 or 30 of the most popular names and then let people vote from there.”
Suggestions topping the chart are Quinn, after zoo founder Pat Quinn; Monkeydoodle; Caesar, from “Planet of the Apes”; or naming the 7.4-pound boy after the doctors who delivered him almost one month ago — Griffin or Dyson.


“Some of the names we’ve gotten I can’t even pronounce,” Wanko said. “We’ve also gotten entries that are clearly named after the person, like Steve or Bradley; and then we’ve gotten girl names, which we’ve had to scrap because we can’t have a huge male gorilla with a girl name.”
Voting for the name will begin Feb. 29 and the gorilla will have a name by mid-March.
Five-year-old Andrew Vieira ran up to the exhibit and asked a zoo employee the sex of the baby.
“I knew it,” he shouted after learning the gorilla is a boy. “I guessed it was a boy before we left the house.”
Andrew’s family soon joined him in staring through the glass at the gorilla, lying on the stomach of a resting zoo worker.
“If I could name him, I’d name him Spiderman,” Andrew said.
The baby gorilla is expected to reach anywhere from 300 to 500 pounds when he becomes an adult, which will be in 12 to 13 years. For now, the zoo is taking round-the-clock care of the primate.
“He’s doing great,” Wanko said. “He’s eating really well, he’s moving on his own — well, he’s scooting on his own.”
Wanko said the gorilla’s upper arm strength has continued to grow, which is demonstrated anytime the zoo worker inside the nursery moves.
“He clings onto our legs, our shirts. He doesn’t let go,” Wanko said.
Inside the nursery, officials working with the small gorilla work to exhibit few human traits.
“We always walk on our knees, we never use utensils in there, and we don’t talk. We just make gorilla noises,” Wanko said. “When he’s about five months, we’ll put him back with the other gorillas.”
Wanko said the baby’s mother, Rwanda, does not recognize the baby as her own. She was raised in a zoo, so her natural instincts for mothering are lacking.
“We are trying to act just like a mother gorilla would whenever we interact with him,” she said. “We do stay the night in the nursery, which now means a feeding every three hours on a good night.”

NEWS - ORPHANED BABY CHIMP IS ADOPTED BY ANOTHER MOTHER AT ZOO IN INCREDIBLE TALE OF COMPASSION AMONG OUR PRIMATES

Orphaned baby chimp is adopted by another mother at zoo in incredible tale of compassion among our primate cousins

 

By Allan Hall

Last updated at 1:24 PM on 11th February 2012


A baby chimpanzee has found a new mother in a zoo in Germany after she was rejected by her own.
Three-week-old female Nayla's adoption by another chimp at Osnabruek Zoo, north-west Germany, shows the high level of nurturing and maternal instincts of man's closest animal cousins.
More importantly, for a bewildered and lost little mite, it means that Nayla will not have to be raised by human hand but can live among her own.

Nayla was born at Osnabrueck Zoo three weeks ago, but her mother, Vakanga, 17, rejected her at the weekend, casting her aside in her enclosure.
Normally this would have meant instant intervention on the part of zookeepers if he was to survive.

But, before they could step in, zoo staff witnessed something remarkable. A eight-year-old male called Kume stepped in as a surrogate father to the abandoned infant.
Keepers watched as he lovingly groomed the orphaned chimp and carried her around like females do.
Wolfgang Festl, in charge of the primates at the zoo, said: 'We saw at the weekend that she was on her own. And then just hours later she was being cared for by Kume.'
For an entire day the zoo staff watched what was taking place at the colony, where 10 chimps live together.
Mr Festl said: 'Throughout the day Kume was grooming the baby, walking around with him and even stuck his finger in his mouth to keep him quiet - like a dummy.'

Zoo inspector Hans-Jürgen Schröder and director Dr Susanne Klomburg hoped Vakanga would take Nayla back because, helpful though Kume was, he could not feed his new daughter.
Dr Klomburg said: 'If that failed, we hoped we could give a bottle to the baby if Kume sat near the bars.
'Chimps learn through observation and if we had more time we could have showed Kume what we wanted to do with a dummy or a doll.'
But Kume didn't let little Nayla out of his grip for days, and she grew gradually weaker.
Then on Tuesday this week Kume finally left baby Nayla alone and staff we able to enter the enclosure and give her some much-needed milk.
And then keepers witnessed something even more extraordinary.
Nayla was picked up by a chimpanzee called Vanessa, aged 27, who put the infant on her back with her own two-year-old daughter, Lila.
Vanessa is able to feed Nayla and has been accepted as having another youngster in tow by the group - a complex and strongly hierarchical structure.
Dr Klomburg added: 'Little Lila was a bit peeved at first having to share the attention of her mother with another. And Kume was off sleeping - being a stepdad took it out of him!'
Chimps rejecting their young is an extremely rare phenomenon - but another chimp adopting such an outcast is even more rare. 
'At least there is a happy ending to this story,' said Dr Klomburg.

NEWS - GORILLA BABY DEATH MYSTERY-ACCIDENT? OR GORIALLA INFANTCIDE?

Gorilla baby death mystery: Accident or gorilla infanticide?

 

Zookeepers don't believe the death of a nine-day-old western lowland gorilla infant at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo was intentional, but mystery still surrounds gorilla behavior both in zoos and in the wild.

By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / November 26, 2011 

 The death of a nine-day-old rare western lowland gorilla infant from head trauma at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo highlights the mysterious dynamics of child rearing in gorilla tribes, where only two out of three infants survive.

Zoo authorities say the unnamed baby, who had already become a big hit with visitors, was observed being carried, lifeless, by its 16-year-old first-time mom, Bana, in the zoo's gorilla enclosure on Friday morning. Authorities believe the mother may have accidentally sat on the baby, but admit they don't fully understand what happened.
"There are no bite marks or cuts and no sign of aggression, but it is possible she may have been dropped or even sat on," Zoo spokeswoman Sharon Dewar told the Daily Mail. "It happened at night and it was too dark to be captured by the cameras in the exhibit."
Last year, a baby gorilla lost part of its leg after a family scuffle in an enclosure at the Louisville Zoo, in Kentucky. Several years ago, a gorilla infant at Zoo Atlanta, which has the largest population of lowland gorillas in the US, was hurt, perhaps accidentally, by the dominant male silverback in the group. Earlier this year, a gorilla infant named Tiny at the London Zoo was killed during a group squabble after a new male was introduced to the group.
Most infanticides in the wild occur when the dominant silverback dies, which often causes females with babies to seek protection inside other family groups rather than face the potential of a rival male murdering the deceased male's offspring.
“Squabbles within a gorilla group do happen,” Louisville Zoo Animal Curator Steve Wing said in a statement. “Gorillas exhibit complex and dynamic relationship behaviors. It is challenging to identify the reason for this occurrence."
But while relationships can be managed at zoos, it's impossible to anticipate the full dynamics of gorilla behavior. In Chicago, zoo staff had worked with Bana to help her figure out how to rear the baby, and all signs showed that she was a good and willing mother.
The zoo says workers allowed Bana to hold onto her baby for several hours "to make peace with what happened."

NEWS - WHO AM I? BABY MONKEY BORN IN JUME HAS NO NAME YET.

Who am I, mum? Baby monkey born in June still hasn’t been named by zookeepers… because they can’t tell its sex

 

By Daily Mail Reporter

 2nd September 2011
With tiny clasped fingers and large, searching eyes, this baby monkey may have reason to look a little troubled.
Despite being born at the end of June, keepers at Edinburgh Zoo still don’t know whether it’s a male or a female.
As its gender is unknown, the orange-eye baby L’Hoest’s monkey hasn’t yet been given a name.

Animal team leader at the zoo, Lorna Hughes, said the tiny primate has proved to be a big hit with visitors.

She said the baby had been born to mum Tumbili, who was flown to the zoo from San Diego eight months ago, and dad Kizizi.
‘Every birth is special, but this one has been really exciting,’ said Lorna.
‘The baby is quite a confident little one. It comes right up to the window to have a look at visitors.

‘We’ll check to see if it is a baby boy or a baby girl when it is about three months old, once the baby has started venturing away from mum a bit more. Once we know, we’ll be able to choose a name.’
She added: ‘Tumbili is a great mum, knowing just what to do and being very caring and protective.’
Currently the baby is still dependent on mum’s milk, but in the coming few weeks she will start trying new foods and will learn how to unpeel fruit.

NEWS - BABY GORILLA RECOVERING FROM JAIL TIME

August 26, 2011
Baby Gorilla Recovering From Jail Time

Heather Murdock | Kinigi, Rwand

Earlier this month Rwandan police rescued what is believed to be a rare baby mountain gorilla, kidnapped from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Veterinarians say she is now successfully recovering trauma, respiratory disease and her brief stay in jail.

It was about 8 p.m. in early August when vets raced to the jailhouse near the Rwanda-Congo border. They came to pick up Ihirwe, a one-and-half year old gorilla that the Rwandan police had rescued from poachers. Her name means, "luck."

At the jail, vets found the baby gorilla inside the cell with the poachers.

Dr. Jan Ramer, the regional veterinary manager for the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project or the "Gorilla Doctors," was at the jail.

"The day we found her in the jail, we walked in and the first we saw was one of the poachers sneezed on her," Ramer recalled.

When vets took in Ihirwe, she was infected with a severe respiratory disease which is life-threatening for gorillas. Like most gorillas infected with the disease, she had caught from a person, either one of the poachers she was jailed with, or someone else.

Believed to be one of less than 800 rare mountain gorillas on earth, Ihirwe was also traumatized and scared.

Mountain gorillas are highly social animals that often live and travel in groups. So, when babies are kidnapped, parents or other relatives are almost always slaughtered in the process.

The three poachers told police she had been snatched from the forest in the Congo, but they didn't kidnap the baby themselves. They purchased her from someone for about $15,000.

And while she now waits at a quarantine center in Rwanda, Ihirwe's DNA is at a lab in Germany. Before they can move her, doctors need to confirm that she is actually a mountain gorilla, as opposed to a lowland gorilla.

Once her identity is certain, she will be brought to a sanctuary to meet other orphan gorillas. Individual mountain gorillas have never been re-introduced to the wild successfully. Ramer says if the orphans form a family, they may one day survive on their own.

"While introduction to the wild is an ideal goal, we are not even close to that endpoint yet," Ramer added. "It's going to be years before they have the age and the behavior tools. And there are also some medical issues that we have to consider."

In the meantime, Ihirwe is fully recovered from respiratory disease, and bonding with the three men who care for her day and night. But when one of the men puts her down to take a walk, she raises her arms earnestly. The doctor says Ihirwe is still scared to be left alone.

Poached baby mountain gorilla doing well: Vet

 

 

Agence France-Presse August 22, 2011

MUSANZE, Rwanda - A highly-endangered mountain gorilla infant rescued from poachers earlier this month is recovering well according to officials with the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project.
"She was clearly sick and traumatized when we found her," Jan Ramer, MGVP veterinary manager, told AFP Monday. "But now she seems healthy. She is comfortable with her care givers and she's getting more and more confident."
The infant gorilla has recovered from a severe respiratory infection — a leading cause of death among mountain gorillas — which Ramer says she likely contracted from humans.
Thought to be about 10 months old and named Ihirwe, which means "Luck" in Kinyarwanda, the gorilla jumps and plays with her care givers, whom she seems to regard as parents, at the MGVP quarantine centre outside Musanze.
Doctors have performed an extensive health check and are waiting for results of a DNA test to confirm Ihirwe's sub-species, before placing her in a long-term refuge reserved for mountain gorillas.
Ihirwe was rescued by police from poachers on August 7 in the town of Rubavu, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
When MGVP vets arrived in the town of Gisenyi, they found the infant in jail where she had been taken along with the poachers.
Had she not been rescued, Ihirwe would have likely been sold in the live infant gorilla trade, according to Katie Fawcett, a veterinarian with The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.
Stealing baby gorillas often results in the death of their protective parents, who refuse to surrender their young, she said.
"Humans are the principal threat to gorillas of all types," Fawcett told AFP earlier this month. "Each orphan we see represents about five adult gorillas killed by poachers."
Mountain gorillas, who have fallen prey to conflict and poaching over the years, were famously brought to the world's attention by the late Dian Fossey, and are one the region's main tourist attractions and foreign currency earners.
The estimated total number of mountain gorillas worldwide is just 790.
They are concentrated in the Virunga massif that straddles the border between Rwanda, DR Congo and Uganda and are also found at a second location in Uganda, in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

NEWS - INFANT STRESS ON MONKEYS HAS LIFE-LONG CONSEQUENCES

8 August 2011

Infant stress in monkeys has life-long consequences

 By Hamish Pritchard Science Reporter

Baby monkeys grew up anxious and anti-social after the stress of separation from their mothers, a study says.

It suggests changes to the brains of infant monkeys may be irreversible, and the study could be a model for humans.
An early shock to the system may leave the monkeys prone to a life of anxiety, poor social skills and depression.
But the work could point the way to better management and treatment of those who live with a legacy of "early adversity".
The report, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that rhesus monkey babies do not fully recover from the stress of being separated from their mothers at birth.
Some baby monkeys had to be cared for separately if they were at risk from an inexperienced mother, the mother lacked breast milk or the baby would not survive in rainy, cold weather.
But even after three years of living a normal social life following the separation, levels of the stress-coping hormone cortisol in these monkeys remained significantly reduced and their bodies' response to stressful events was slower.
In monkeys and humans, cortisol is released in stressful situations to mobilise energy stores and aid survival.
Changes to developing brain But sustained stress and prolonged release of cortisol can lead to severe impairment of some brain regions as they develop.
The baby monkeys that suffered the stress of separation from their mothers went on to be more anxious and less sociable than monkeys that were raised by their mothers.
This study is unique in demonstrating that, for monkeys, the negative effects of separation in infancy cannot be reversed by a later normal social life, write the authors.
These findings may help explain work reported earlier this week in the American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP) on the link between childhood maltreatment and later depression in humans.
Both of these studies suggest that stress on infants has long-term negative effects.
Dr Andrea Danese of King's College London, co-author of AJP study, said: "In this case you have findings in animals that resemble to an extent the findings in humans both from a behavioural point of view and from a biological point of view."
"If you take studies in humans who have experienced loss I think the findings are quite consistent. Children who lose parents or are separated from parents tend to show more anxious behaviour, and tend also to have changes in the same type of hormones that were measured. In some cases they have poorer social skills, they have more aggressive behaviour."
Long-term illnesses In humans, there also appear to be links between childhood adversity, physiology and other illnesses later in life, possibly through the stress-sensitive immune system.
Dr Danese told BBC News: "Both cortisol and the immune system are related. Cortisol is a very potent anti-inflammatory compound: low cortisol means high inflammation."
"Adults with a history of childhood maltreatment have these elevated inflammation levels. Inflammation is one of the key factors that contribute to a number of age-related conditions like cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes and dementia."
"There is something in these stress sensitive systems that is very finely regulated and tuned in childhood. This is because all these systems are developing and maturing during early life."
It appears that stress in childhood, for monkeys and humans, can lead to behavioural and health problems that can only be partially repaired in later life. But there is a positive side to these results.
"The message sounds very negative and I understand why, but from the research point of view I think it is positive because it points to the problem and once we understand the causes of all these behavioural problems, we can then start trying to find the potential cures," said Dr Danese.
He added: "In humans, there is a movement in psychiatry to be moved earlier in life. More and more we're trying to work with young people who have been exposed to traumatic experiences, to maltreatment, to try to see how we can help them overcome their depressive symptoms or work with families and try to avoid the recurrence of the traumatic event."

NEWS - BABY LEOPARDS, PANTHERS, MONKEYS,AND BEAR FOUND IN MANS SUITCASES AT THAI AIRPORT

Baby Leopards, Panthers, Monkeys And Bear Found In Man's Suitcases At Thai Airport 

 

AP/The Huffington Post
05/13/11

BANGKOK (AP) -- Authorities at Bangkok's international airport arrested a first-class passenger Friday whose suitcases were filled with baby leopards, panthers, a bear and monkeys. The animals had been drugged and were headed for Dubai.
The man, a 36-year-old United Arab Emirates citizen, was waiting to check in for his flight at Suvarnabhumi International Airport when he was apprehended by undercover anti-trafficking officers, who had been monitoring him since his black market purchase of the rare and endangered animals, according to the FREELAND Foundation, an anti-trafficking group based in Thailand.

When authorities opened the suitcases, the animals yawned, said Steven Galster, director of FREELAND, who was present during the bust. There were two leopards, two panthers, an Asiatic black bear and two macaque monkeys – all about the size of puppies.
"It looked like they had sedated the animals and had them in flat cages so they couldn't move around much," Galster said. Some of the animals were placed inside canisters with air holes.

Authorities believe the man was part of a trafficking network and were searching for suspected accomplices. "It was a very sophisticated smuggling operation. We've never seen one like this before," Galster said. "The guy had a virtual zoo in his suitcases."
Thailand is a hub for illegal wildlife trafficking, but authorities typically find rare turtles, tortoises, snakes and lizards that feed demand in China and Vietnam. Finding such an array of live mammals is unusual.
"We haven't seen this mixture (of animals) before," Galster said. "It's amazing. We were really surprised."
In Thailand, leopards and panthers fetch roughly $5,000 a piece on the black market, but their value in Dubai is presumably higher, Galster said. It was not known if the animals were destined to be resold or kept as exotic pets, a practice popular in the Middle East.

NEWS - ADAM CLAYTON, OF U2, HAS A BABY BOY!

 all i can say is..FINALLY! and...CONGRATULATIONS ADAM!   MICHELLE

 Achtung baby, Adam is the proud father of a little boy

U2 bassist finally finds what he's looking for with French partner

By BARRY EGAN world exclusive

Sunday January 16 2011

Adam Clayton has finally found what he's looking for. The U2 bassist is a father. He had a child with a French woman early last year. For years, Adam was the only one in the world-famous band who wasn't a parent.
"I think one of the great things about bands is that they allow you to be irresponsible for longer -- whether or not in the end that's a really healthy position to take," Adam told Q Magazine in 2001.
"I guess I've been lucky in that I fucked about until my mid-30s and now I can have more of a balanced outlook. I think not having a family and kids, I know what I need."
Obviously he changed his opinion last year when his French partner had a baby boy.
According to my source very close to U2, he is deliriously happy with fatherhood. The same source even claimed it is indeed the making of Adam, the one-time bad boy of the group who was once engaged to supermodel Naomi Campbell.
Definitely the most rock 'n' roll member of U2 for years (he was arrested outside the Blue Light pub in the Dublin mountains in 1989 for possession of marijuana), Adam was not shy about showing his colourful credentials as an out-of-kilter rock star. He was photographed displaying his proud manhood on the inside cover of U2's Achtung Baby album in 1991.
It is all achtung baby and nappy changes now for the former dedicated bachelor and libertine. He gave up drink in 1996. For his birthday one year, Bono recalled a few years ago, the rest of U2 bought him a travelling cocktail cabinet.
Bono added that "we lived through him vicariously for a few years. I was hoping that he'd do something like buy a yacht and we could all hang out on it. Because all of us were too embarrassed."
A different kind of embarrassment occurred in November 1993. Adam missed a show in Sydney because he was too emotional to go on stage during the Zoo TV tour.
"We thought that was the end," Bono said later in reference to Sydney. "We didn't want to go on if someone was that unhappy and not enjoying himself."
That lost night of turbulence in Australia matched his relationship with his ex-fiancee, queen of the temper tantrum as much as the catwalk, Naomi Campbell.
They were engaged in 1993 for a high-profile and stormy six months. Bono said at the time that the relationship was good for Adam (who was best man at his wedding to Alison Stewart in Raheny on August 21, 1982) because it "forced him to be the stable one in the relationship".
It is believed that Adam called off the relationship. In any event, Campbell told the Observer a few years ago, "I'm still great friends with Adam".
More importantly, Adam seems friends with himself now; something that couldn't be said during his drinking years. He told the Montreal Gazette in 2001 that his decision to quit "kind of brought me back down to earth, and now, having gone through all that, I definitely prefer it the way it is. I feel much more focused, much more... useful". And being a father is certainly useful.
He is more than useful with U2, providing some of the most memorable riffs on the band's music -- chief among them Bullet The Blue Sky and New Year's Day. ("That actually grew out of me trying to work out the chords to the Visage tune Fade to Grey," he revealed to BP Fallon a few years ago. "It was a kind of Euro-disco dance hit, and somehow it turned into New Year's Day.")
Clayton is an integral part of the group. "Adam was another reason my guitar playing developed the way it did," The Edge once said. "He was such an unorthodox bass player, and Larry and myself, in an attempt to make it work, developed our mutual styles to accommodate Adam's approach. In some ways Larry and I were like the rhythm section and Adam's really forceful bass playing was almost like the lead, it was very much out in the forefront."
He is also an absolutely charming gentleman. I've met him many times over the years (including San Francisco in 1992); he is always the most down to earth and decidedly un-rock star-ish chap on the planet.
I was backstage at U2's show in Paris last September and he was Zen-calm as he chatted to Danish supermodel Helena Christensen (a rumoured ex of his) before going on in front of 98,000 people.
The further good news is that my mole in the U2 camp tells me that fatherhood suits Adam and he is a new man -- he has been, in fact, for the last decade-and-a-half since he stopped the sauce. It is certainly a new commitment for the member of U2 who could possibly have been seen as a commitmentphobe until now.
Lest we forget, post-Naomi, he got engaged to his girlfriend of 10 years Susie Smith in 2006. When I announced the news to the world on the front page of this newspaper, U2 then put it on the official U2 website. It read: "Congratulations! We can confirm the rumour that Adam Clayton is engaged to Canadian girlfriend, Susie Smith. All of us at U2.com wish Adam and Susie all the best for the future!"
Adam (who is currently in the US with the band ahead of the restart of their world tour in Johannesburg in South Africa on February 13) asked her on Valentine's night 2006 at a private soiree in London where the couple spent a lot of time together.
Then a year later Adam and Susie went their separate ways after what was described by friends as "an amicable split". Alas, it wasn't to be. It scotched the hot rumour that they were supposed to get married in the biggest rock 'n' roll wedding of the year in 2007, with Bono as best man.
My favourite Adam Clayton rumour is that he put his body in front of Bono in 1987 during a show in America's deep south during Pride (In the Name of Love) to protect his friend from an alleged death threat.
Adam (along with Bono and The Edge) answered an ad on the notice board at Mount Temple school that 14-year-old Larry Mullen had posted in 1976. The rest is history. Of the early U2, Bono once said that: "Adam was bringing a lot of panache to the proceedings, and he was starting to produce a really great bass sound, even though he was a very eccentric bass player. He could play really complicated things easily and then be unable to clap in time and you'd just be left scratching your head."
Years ago, the concept of Adam Clayton as daddy would have had you furiously scratching your head. But not now.

- BARRY EGAN world exclusive