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Bobby, left, pictured with Effie, centre, and Zaire; Mjukuu |
Bobby’s dazzlers
How do gorillas cope with losing a mate? Richard Osley went to see the widows of Bobby – eight months after his untimely death
POOR old Bobby. The big Western Lowland gorilla who became London Zoo’s best-loved attraction had a few hard knocks before settling down in the capital.
He was poached, hauled out of the wild by rustlers in Equatorial Guinea and sold to an Italian circus. He spent five years with the jugglers and clowns before being rescued by a zoo in Rome.
A transfer later followed to Bristol Zoo before Bongo Junior – to use the official name on his passport – arrived in London and found fame as the poster boy for the zoo’s £5.3million Gorilla Kingdom exhibit, part of the zoo’s move towards cageless collections.
The lucky champ was match-made with three love interests: Zaire 35, Effie, 16, and Mjukuu, 10, with the real prospect of little Bobbies on the cards as affection blossomed with Mjukuu, his favourite valentine.
It would have been the perfect return for the zoo’s investment in gorilla conservation work. But then, just as he had made it, just as the big man had been set up for life in one of the world’s most creative gorilla enclosures with the three doting girls of his dreams, tragedy struck.
Early in December, Bobby’s heart suddenly failed and he was found dead in his love nest by heartbroken keepers.
The zoo was in mourning. The gorilla who had stolen their own hearts was dead at 25, 10 years earlier than average life expectancy.
“He was such an icon,” says Daniel Simmonds, who has looked after gorillas at the zoo for the past five years. “We set up a book of condolences and thousands of people signed the online version from all over the world. Children brought in pictures they had drawn of him. Poor old Bobby.”
Nine months after his sudden passing, his three widows, all of whom he had intimate relations with, have adapted to life after Bobby. They still have a role to play in the zoo’s conservation and educational commitments aimed at protecting the gorilla, which for all its human-like mannerisms is a threatened species. There are around 120,000 Western Lowland gorillas in the wild but Mr Simmonds says numbers can “halve dramatically” in an erratic population.
“If I said to Zaire, OK we are going to release you into the wild in Africa, she would go and I bet that within a week she would be wanting to come back to London,” he says. “It’s a pretty tough life in the wild – they have the threat of being hunted and disease. It can change every day but it really is like the Big Brother house. Relationships can change over a matter of hours change. The hierarchy can change. There is always a worry when you take one gorilla about what relationships you are left with. Like housemates in a human house, you might take somebody away and leave three people who don’t get on without the fourth there to link them together.”
So what now for Bobby’s girls? They spent the days before Christmas grieving but Mr Simmonds says they “bounced back” within a couple of weeks. “We had to leave each gorilla with Bobby’s body for some time. They all had some time with him. You can’t just take the body away – they have to learn and accept that he had died. Then they had some time all three with Bobby. They grieved in different ways. Mjukuu very upset, crying. Effie cried a lot. Zaire wasn’t so bothered. Just like people, gorillas react in different ways. They were very sad, downcast at that time. And then after about two weeks they began to bounce back. They have to because grieving would make them weak. Since then, they have been fine.”
So fine, they are now ready to love again, lonely hearts who would like to see some fresh silver fur (hairy backs not a problem). An international appeal has gone out and gorilla dealers are scanning a studbook of available gorillas to see who could fit in at London.
“It’s a question of when rather than if in terms of bringing in a new male gorilla,” says Mr Simmonds. “It’s a bit like buying a house, there is usually a chain and a few things can happen before a gorilla can be moved because it will affect the group he leaves behind. I just can’t say when it will be at the moment but we are working on it.”
He adds: “And it’s just like with humans. Conception can take years or it can happen straight away. I am very confident that if we introduce the right male that there is a good chance of reproduction.
“The females will not forget Bobby but they know that a way up the hierarchy is to be close to the male gorilla and to be his favourite, so they will be very keen.”
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