Lincoln Park Zoo will begin to empty its doomed Great Ape House next week by sending away one of its two gorilla families, a move that eventually will leave the zoo without gorillas for the first time in 72 years.
Most, if not all, of the animals will return to Chicago, but probably not until 2005 when the zoo’s new, much-expanded ape house is expected to open.
Leaving Tuesday in an air-conditioned semitrailer truck will be three adult female apes and their leader, Kwan, a young male who last year co-starred in “Return to Me,” a movie that had scenes filmed at the zoo. They will travel 14 hours to a new home at Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, S.C.
One of the females going with Kwan is Kumba, who in 1970 was the first captive-born gorilla at Lincoln Park and one of the first in the world. She has never been away from the zoo.
Sometime next year, the zoo’s remaining gorillas, a much larger family now headed by Frank, an aging, 37-year-old silverback male, will be transferred to the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky. Lincoln Park is also looking for a facility that can take its six chimpanzees.
When the last of Frank’s group leaves, it will be the first time that the zoo has not had a gorilla to show off to visitors since 1930, when it acquired a wild-born toddler named Bushman.
Bushman grew to be a legendary giant, the largest ape in captivity, bringing international fame to the zoo. Ever since, Lincoln Park’s reputation has been inextricably linked to its gorillas, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, when it was known as the most successful gorilla breeding zoo anywhere.
Now the zoo is raising $25 million to raze its old ape house, opened in 1976, and put up a new one whose features will draw on the wealth of new knowledge about chimp and gorilla life that has been amassed in the last 25 years.
“I’m in denial,” said Kristen Lukas, the zoo’s primate curator, about Kwan’s group leaving in a few days. “It’s so hard to think about them moving, but we are planning to build something really special here.”
The zoo was fortunate, she said, that the closure of their old ape house coincides with other zoos needing animals to populate new gorilla habitats.
“Other zoos that have had to move their gorillas out while building new facilities have had to move them piecemeal,” said Steve Thompson, Lincoln Park Zoo’s vice president of conservation and science. “They couldn’t find anyplace with space for a whole family, so they had split their groups up, scattering each member to a different institution.
“That is tough. It’s hard on animals to go through introductions to new families, then bring them home a few years later to a whole new reintroduction with their old family group.”
Experience with moving
Because of Lincoln Park’s past breeding success, the zoo has moved whole gorilla families before, giving them up to other zoos permanently. That experience will help next Tuesday when keepers will start the day for Kwan and his harem as normally as possible.
“Gorillas become upset when their routines are disrupted,” said Lukas, “so next Tuesday will start like any other day. One of the first things we have our animals do every day is come to the open mesh walls at the rear of their living spaces to get a quick health check by keepers.”
As each animal presents its arms as it is trained to do in the morning checkups, the keepers Tuesday will administer a powerful anesthesia.
While the animals sleep, veterinarians will take blood samples, listen to heart and lungs, do tuberculosis tests and radiographs of their chests, make sure all are up to date on vaccinations, and do dental exams and teeth cleanings.
Once that is done, the sleeping animals will be shifted onto gurneys and wheeled out of the building to transport cages. The cages will not be put on the waiting truck until each wakes up.
“We want to make sure they’re awake from the anesthesia and are all right before they leave,” said Lukas.
To ease the strain of the move, keeper Roby Elsner will travel with the gorillas and stay in South Carolina for six months.
Kwan and his harem are to arrive in the wee hours June 20. They will walk out of their cages into a vast, lush, densely planted outdoor habitat covering three-quarters of an acre.
Living outside might be a problem, at least initially, for two of the females, Kumba and Kowali, 23. Both have spent most of their lives indoors and only grudgingly go out at Lincoln Park when they are given the chance.
“Gorillas are neophobic, afraid of the new,” said Lukas. “It won’t surprise me if it takes some time for Kumba and Kowali to get used to being outdoors.”
If they want to be inside, they can use Riverbanks’ 5,000-square-foot indoor gorilla habitat–though it is expected all of the gorillas eventually will prefer outdoors.
“Our climate is such that our animals can remain outside if they want about 355 days a year,” said Satch Krantz, Riverbanks’ zoo director.
A first for Riverbanks zoo
Excitement has been building for several months in South Carolina for the arrival of Kwan and his group, as Riverbanks has never had great apes before, Krantz said. The zoo was happy to get the gorillas–even on a temporary basis.
“Right now, it would be impossible for us to start with a breeding group of a male and adult females,” said Steve Wing, mammal curator at Riverbanks. “It will take years before we get to that point, so this is a great way for us to get our exhibit started.”
After Kwan and his group leave, Lincoln Park keepers plan to bring in another breeding male gorilla. The plan is to split Frank’s large family of 11 in two before they move to Louisville Zoo’s new gorilla park–a move spurred by the family patriarch’s advancing age.
“Assuming our new building opens in 2005, there’s a good chance Frank won’t come back, that he’ll be deceased by then,” Lukas said. “In that case, we’ll recombine the two groups and bring them back here as one.”
Frank is not the only one to be getting up in years. Lukas also singled out two females, Helen, 43, and Debbie, 36, an especially prized “auntie” who, childless herself, has lovingly raised several infants rejected by their mothers.
However many come back, the building they will return to will bear little resemblance to the current one. That circular, three-story structure was state-of-the-art when it opened in 1976 and is one of the most successful great-ape facilities in history, but it is badly outdated now.
Habitat improvements
The most noticeable difference will be in the gorillas’ indoor habitats, now a serviceable jumble of steel climbing poles, ropes, concrete platforms and floors covered in straw. The new building’s living spaces will be filled with realistic artificial trees, vines and forest streams to suggest to visitors the actual wilderness where gorillas live.
More important, the new building will have outdoor yards for each ape family, allowing the animals to spend far more time outside. The facilities also will give keepers and scientists more access to the animals.
“It’s going to be a great day for the zoo to get the animals back to our new facility,” said Lukas. “But first they have to leave so we can build it, and Kwan’s group will be the first to go. Tuesday is going to be a big day for those guys.”
