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 - TWO 400 LB GORILLAS ESCAPE KASAS CITY ZOO

Two 400-pound gorillas escape KC zoo 

 

by NBC News

Posted on February 21, 2012

Two 400-pound gorillas got loose at the Kansas City Zoo Sunday afternoon, and guests in the Africa section of the zoo were quarantined for about an hour.

The gorillas, Mbundi and Ntondo, were in a holding area during routine maintenance when somebody forgot to fasten a lock, zoo director Randy Wisthoff said.

The gorillas got into a zookeeper workspace, prompting zoo officials to call a “Code Red,” which means an animal is not where it’s supposed to be.

Wisthoff said there was another safety door preventing the gorillas from getting out in public areas, but two employees were in the area when the gorillas got.

“If probably anyone was in danger, those two keepers were,” Wisthoff said.

Nobody knew how the gorillas would react to being in the same room with the zookeepers.

“Gorillas are very territorial,” Wisthoff said, “and you just don’t know.”

Guests were evacuated from the Africa portion of the zoo.

The gorillas were contained, but were not in an area that they were supposed to be in.

A few people were in the gorilla exhibit during the situation.

Alex Judge said the workers were scrambling to get out of the enclosure.

"They pushed a ladder up to get over the retention wall and when she got to the top she was quickly pulling people over and then they pushed the ladder over and that's when they told us to leave," said Judge.

Zoo guests were sent to various zoo buildings while the gorillas were corralled.

"They called a 'code red' and made everyone leave. It's disappointing," said Teresa Smith.

The zoo’s three other gorillas were not involved in the incident.

Kansas City Zoo officials said on Monday they are questioning workers about Sunday's incident at the zoo.

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 -GORILLA BORN AT PITSBURGH ZOO, MOM & BABY DOING FINE< BABYS GENDER UNKNOWN

Gorilla born at Pittsburgh Zoo, mom and baby doing fine; zookeepers don’t know gender yet

 

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, February 17, 2012

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Zoo has a new baby gorilla in its midst.
Zoo officials say 15-year-old Moka gave birth last week after a year-and-a-half courtship with the zoo’s lead gorilla, 20-year-old Mrithi.

Zookeepers don’t yet know the baby’s gender, but say it appears to weigh between three and five pounds.
The new baby was born sometime after workers left the evening of Feb. 8. By the next morning the band of gorillas had grown from six to seven.
The baby is the first gorilla born at the zoo since 2001. Its father was the first born at the Pittsburgh Zoo, while Moka arrived from Miami in 2007.
Zoo officials say the other gorillas are keeping a respectful distance.
Visitors can see the new arrival at the zoo’s Tropical Forest exhibit.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NEWS - BALD EAGLE NOW ON DISPLAY AT RIVERBANKS ZOO COLUMBIA, SC

Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012

Bald eagle now on display at Riverbanks

 

By JOEY HOLLEMAN 

 

 

Riverbanks Zoo decided to ship its two bald eagles to other zoos in 1998 and go with more exotic birds in its new Birdhouse.
Since then, people routinely asked Martin Vince, curator of birds, why the national bird wasn’t represented at Riverbanks. This week, the bald eagle finally returns to the Riverbanks collection.
The young female eagle now on display at Riverbanks was found injured in a ditch in December and taken to Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research in Delaware. Veterinarians nursed the bird back to health, but a shoulder injury makes her too poor of a flyer to survive in the wild. When the bird was offered to zoos, Riverbanks provided her a home. A new enclosure has been built next to the grizzly bear exhibit.


When the zoo’s two original bald eagles, donated by Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1979, were sent to other zoos, the species was in the midst of an amazing rebound in the wild. Populations had shrunk to endangered levels in the mid-1900s before the banning of the insecticide DDT, which not only killed bugs but weakened bird eggs. Bald eagles now are common sights soaring along the waterways of South Carolina, with an estimated 250 nesting pairs in the wild in the state and 10,000 nationwide.
“This bird’s survival story is really a metaphor for the species as a whole,” Vince said.
In the Midlands, nesting pairs have settled in recent years on the Saluda River near Saluda Shoals Park and at the confluence of the Broad and Saluda rivers near the zoo.
But zoo visitors missed seeing the majestic creatures up close. “We loved those bald eagles,” Vince said visitors often said to him. “When I got the email about this bird, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to reacquire the species.”
The bird is estimated to be a year old, and bald eagles can live up to 35 years in captivity. She will be allowed to acclimate slowly to her new enclosure and to the keepers, Vince said. The goal is to train the bird so she can be brought out perched on a gloved hand at the climax of the daily Wings of the South Bird Show.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2154380/bald-eagle-now-on-display-at-riverbanks.html#storylink=Morning%20Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2154380/bald-eagle-now-on-display-at-riverbanks.html#storylink=Morning%20Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2154380/bald-eagle-now-on-display-at-riverbanks.html#storylink=Morning%20Newsletter#storylink=cpy

NEWS -PRIMATE PALACE OPENS AT AUSTIN, TEXAS ZOO

Primate Palace opens at Austin Zoo

  By Ben Wear AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Makayla, like anyone moving into new and strange living quarters, seemed a bit shaken by the experience Saturday.
She huddled under what appeared to be her favorite gray blankie and peered nervously at a visitor through the wire of her cage. Makayla, you see, is a capushin monkey who, like a dozen or so of her simian friends, is spending her first days in the Austin Zoo and Animal Sanctuary's new Primate Palace.
On Saturday, the rescue zoo, in Oak Hill near U.S. 290, celebrated the opening of the $102,000 revamped former pony barn. The small wood-frame building over the past three years had to be re-leveled, repainted (including a mural on one side), outfitted with several monkey "bedrooms" inside and expanded to the west with large outdoor cages for the residents.
Openings in the palace wall allow the monkeys to move at their leisure between the heated indoors (or air-conditioned, as the seasons demand) and the cages outdoors with ropes and platforms for climbing.
Dozens of zoo-goers gathered outside those cages on the brisk but pleasant afternoon as head zookeeper Sara King and primate expert Kelly Todd talked about the monkeys and how they came to live in the Hill Country.
The facility is a rescue zoo, one that does not seek out animals for display but rather accepts animals surrendered by civilian owners (including a lion that was living with an over-the-road trucker), given up by research or medical facilities, or captured by agencies like the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Donna King, a capuchin so named for a hairdo that resembles boxing promoter Don King's wild locks, had been a test subject for psychotropic drugs in an earlier life, zoo Executive Director Patti Clark said. Despite having been at the zoo for quite a while, Ms. King has never been able to grow back much of her coat, Clark said.
But most of the zoo's 30 or so primates, and the other 300 or so big cats, bears, foxes, birds and other animals at the sanctuary, looked hale Saturday.
The sanctuary, after a rough few years of lax management, poor morale and sometimes surly customer service under its previous owners, now has a $900,000 annual budget, a larger donor base and 15 full-time employees, Clark said.
"It's all about giving these (animals) a better opportunity than they had before," Todd said.

NEWS - NEWBORN GORILLA MAKES HIS 1st APPEARANCE AT GULF BREEZE ZOO

Newborn gorilla makes his first appearance at Gulf Breeze Zoo

 

Public suggests names for gorilla

11:00 PM, Feb. 4, 2012

 

 Uno.

Maybe Sam.

How about Sunny?

There was no shortage of suggestions Saturday for a name to give a baby gorilla, the newest family member at The Gulf Breeze Zoo.

The 2-week-old male gorilla, the first born at the zoo, made its first public appearance to a crowd anxious to catch a glimpse of the little fellow. He was born Jan. 23 but has been nursed by zookeepers since.

Kayte Wanko, director of the zoo, held the infant gorilla in her lap in the zoo's nursery for the visitors.

Wanko explained there were some minor complications, but mother and baby are fine.

"She's a first-time mom," Wanko said.

The baby will be nursed for the next five months and then reintroduced to the parents.

Tenielle Welch, an assistant coordinator with the zoo, said the mother recognizes the baby but has yet to build a bond with him.

"They're seeing each other every day," she said.

The zoo workers have been taking the baby to see the parents every morning and evening since its birth.

The young star attracted a great deal of attention. Many of the visitors who stopped by said he was cute and offered up their thoughts for a name.

Parents pointed to the baby in Wanko's lap and showed their children the gorilla's tiny, wrinkled, hairy body.

Madolyn Johnson said she came out to see the baby after she saw the picture in the News Journal.

"He looks smaller than I thought," she said. "Precious, precious."

She said she thought a few names for him could be Uno or Billy.

"I thought Uno, because he's the first-born," she said.

Jessica Beas said she was visiting the zoo and heard about the baby gorilla.

"I think he's adorable," she said.

NEWS - ZOO GORILLA KIMANI PREDICTS PATRIOTS TO WIN SUPER BOWL AFTER LITLE JOE BALKS (would be interesting to see if he picked right, lol)

Zoo gorilla Kimani predicts Patriots to win Super Bowl after Little Joe balks 

Posted by Matt Rocheleau  February 3, 2012 

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

Even Little Joe, a gorilla who is considered to be one of the most intelligent animals at the Franklin Park Zoo, was unable to choose who he thinks will win Sunday’s Super Bowl, which has the narrowest point spread in decades.
With close ties to both New York and New England, Little Joe was called upon this morning to predict whether he thinks the Patriots or Giants will take home the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Zoo staff set up boxes with the two team’s names on them this morning, and Little Joe was supposed to pick one. But he declined to show favor to either contender, likely, according to zoo officials, because his ties to the two team’s cities made the choice “a tough pick for him to make.”
Instead, 7-year-old gorilla Kimani stepped into the role of soothsaying primate and selected the Patriots to win.
Kimani, who likes to play with Little Joe, is a Boston native and lifelong resident. Little Joe was born at the Bronx Zoo in 1993, but has lived at Franklin Park in Boston for the past 15 years.
One of eight gorillas at the zoo, Kimani is the daughter of Kit and Kiki and the middle-offspring between her older sister Kira and younger sister Kambiri.
“Kimani likes to get the attention of the other gorillas and tries to entice them to chase her throughout the exhibit,” the zoo says on its website. “She always wants someone to chase and play with her. Kimani likes grapes and cantaloupe.”
Globe columnist Tony Massarotti, citing Las Vegas odds makers, wrote today that "the Patriots essentially have been a three-point favorite from the start - the smallest Super Bowl point spread in roughly 30 years."
Little Joe was asked to make his public prediction at the gorilla exhibit in the Tropical Forest section of the zoo this morning, two days before he plans to host a football-themed party to celebrate both his 19th birthday and the NFL title game.
On Super Bowl Sunday, the gorilla exhibit in the Tropical Forest where Little Joe lives will be festively decorated for a “Big Game Birthday Party” starting at 10:30 a.m.
Little Joe and all of his gorilla friends will enjoy birthday treats made for them. And, visitors will be able to sign a giant birthday card for Little Joe and eat cake made by White’s Fine Cakes & Pastry, which will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Zookeepers call Joe "The Scientist" as well as "Don Juan," and he is considered among the most intelligent of the animals at Franklin Park.
Little Joe, a particularly social, 5-foot tall, 300-pound gorilla, lives among the other gorillas at Franklin Park Zoo in a multi-million dollar habitat built after he escaped in 2003 on two occasion.
During his second, high-profile escape, the western lowland gorilla attacked and injured a 2-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman, who was an off-duty zoo employee. The incident alarmed the neighborhood, sparked criticism of the zoo.

NEWS - FLORIDA ZOO ASKS FOR HELP NAMING BABY GORILLA

Gulf Breeze Zoo asks for help naming baby gorilla

 The name that baby gorilla contest is on.

Zuri, Curious George and just plain Cute are among the dozens of names flowing into the The Breeze Zoo after zoo officials sent out a call to help name their new resident, a baby Western lowland gorilla.
The 5-pound bouncing baby boy was born on Jan. 23 and is the son of Rwanda, the 25-year-old mother, and Babuka, a 19-year-old male.
Kayte Wanko, zoo director, said name submissions are being accepted through Feb. 29. Zoo staff will vote and announce the name by March 15.
"He is the first baby gorilla to be born at the zoo," Wanko said. "We're raising him as close to gorilla as we can. We crawl around with him, sleep on the floor with him. A gorilla needs to be on its mother 24 hours a day."
Rwanda began to show signs of labor Sunday night. Twelve hours later, a cesarean section was performed.
The mother was unable to produce milk and displayed behavior that was potentially threatening to her offspring, which is not unusual for first-time and hand-reared mothers of all species. As a result, zoo staff are rotating mommy gorilla duties.
The work is paying off. The baby is robust and thriving. And, if all goes well, the wide-eyed, fuzzy-headed baby may be in his nursery, behind glass, where the public may see him on Saturday. Early afternoons will likely be the best viewing time, Wanko said.

NEWS - GORILLA BORN AT FLORIDA PANHANDLE ZOO

posted on Thursday, 02.02.12

Gorilla born at Florida Panhandle zoo

 

The Associated Press

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- A zoo in the Florida Panhandle wants some helping naming a new gorilla.
The 5-pound male Western lowland gorilla was born Jan. 23 at the Gulf Breeze Zoo. The mother is a 25-year-old named Rwanda.
It's the first gorilla birth at the zoo in Gulf Breeze. Zoo director Kayte Wanko says the baby gorilla was delivered by a cesarean section.
Wanko says zoo staff members are caring for the baby gorilla for now because its mother could not produce milk and displayed behaviors that may be harmful to her offspring.
Wanko tells the Pensacola News Journal ( http://on.pnj.com/yahHeB) that names can be submitted by mail or in the gift shop through Feb. 29. After that, zoo staff will vote on a name and announce the winner by March 15.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/02/2620549/gorilla-born-at-florida-panhandle.html#storylink=cpy

NEWS - SPRING HAS SPRUNG WITH ZOO BABIES

Spring has sprung with new zoo babies 

 

September 2, 2011

Spring has sprung quite literally at Taronga Zoo.
An endangered Francois langur monkey, seven koala joeys and a glossy black cockatoo chick (the first at Taronga in seven years) have all been born in recent months.
Many of them are taking advantage of the warmer weather to make their first entrance into the world, the zoo said in a statement yesterday.

The birth on August 20 of the male Francois langur monkey, named Tam Dao, is a particularly welcome addition as his species is critically endangered.
Only 1000 Francois langurs - also known as Francois leaf monkeys - are known to exist in the wild, and Taronga is the only zoo in Australasia to care for the Asian species.
Another young male, Kei-co, was born this year.

Meanwhile, Taronga's koalas have been busy this breeding season, giving birth to seven joeys.
Some of the young, which are born the size of a grain of rice, are still tucked up in their mother's pouches.
But a few proud mothers - Maggie, Wanda and Freya - are showing off their infants.
"We've had quite a baby boom in the zoo this year, which is fantastic," Taronga Zoo spokeswoman Danielle McGill said.
"The warmer spring weather means the animals are getting a lot more active, and a few of the young are beginning to poke their heads out of their mother's pouch."
Taronga's wildlife hospital is also busy at this time of year, caring for newborn animals who have been left orphaned.
A seven-month-old red kangaroo joey and a mob of little possums are being raised by carers who mind them 24 hours a day.
Zookeeper Megan is as busy as a new mum, bottle-feeding the female joey every four hours and carrying her around in a little backpack.
Two of the young possums were brought to the hospital after they were found in their dead mother's pouch after she was hit by a car.
They too are cared for 24 hours a day by a dedicated zookeeper, Bobby-Jo, and Swiss has the distinction of sporting the world's tiniest splint after she fractured her wrist.
The zoo has also bred a glossy black cockatoo chick, which is the first of its kind for seven years at the zoo.
The youngster was hatched by first-time mother Gloucester.
"It is fully feathered now and really quite beautiful," Ms McGill said. "Now is a lovely time to get down to the zoo and watch the animals as they get more active in the warmer weather."
AAP

NEWS - GORILLA EYES SURGERY MAKES DALLAS DOC FEEL SENSE OF HIGHTENED RESPONIBILITY

Friday, April 24, 2009
Gorilla eye surgery makes Dallas doc feel sense of heightened responsibility

by PegNews wire

... as opposed to when he's working on mere humans.

Timbo the gorilla is the eldest of the great apes at the Dallas Zoo (she's 47). She was having trouble seeing, due to cataracts. So zookeepers called in Dallas eye doc R. Wayne Bowman to perform radical eye surgery on the beast, and the results have been peachy-keen, thanks very much.

According to the good doctor, he felt "a greater sense of responsibility" when operating on Timbo than when performing a similar procedure on a human.