Gorillas

Today we took a trip to the LA Zoo.

The gorillas were probably the most noteworthy of the habitats. I chanced upon an educator/zookeeper who spent about 15 minutes telling me some of the more intriguing characteristics of the residents, like for instance:

Did you know that gorillas see direct eye contact as threatening? It seems that their zookeepers have mastered the habit of avoiding this issue as this girl almost never looked anywhere near my face the entire time we spoke. I found it really odd, until she brought up this point. It must be hard to differentiate between gorilla and human after so long!

There is usually one male per three or four females. Here in LA they had four females and three males, though the other two (non-alphas) were kept in a separate but attached habitat. They were still young so I guess it is totally ok for them to be without any women. If we could, I bet we’d do the same thing with our young men.

The gorillas like it relatively quiet and I can totally get on board with that. When it gets too loud, they sometimes slink off to the back of their territory where no one can see them, or Kelly (the dominant male) has been known to throw things at loud onlookers…i.e. his poo. You can bet this was Ethan’s favorite story of the day!

Kelly has a six year old daughter, Glenda, that he and Rapunzel (the mom) spoil pretty badly. Though her mom is attempting to wean her, Glenda still insists on continuing to breastfeed at least once a week. This was dang obvious when I saw the poor mother’s milk ducts hanging like unfortunate deflated balloons. It happens to all of us, but after six years – yeah, you could tell!

The “baby” tends to steal food and then hides out just under the electrical fence; she’s just barely small enough. But dad tries to be a just and equitable leader and comes right over, ripping her out of her hiding spot and promptly confiscating the stolen goods.

I guess food pillaging is a common theme “out in the wild.” The new female they brought in for Kelly (he needed a little loving since Rapunzel is still preoccupied with his daughter and the older, 35-year old female, Evelyn, won’t have anything to do with him – her heart is elsewhere chasing after a slightly hairy zookeeper – but that’s an entirely different story all together) is pretty much a fatty with no desire to change. She and Kelly have not “connected” yet but she’s become very adept at thieving much of the allotted food and hiding it away for herself. The keepers have been trying to enforce a diet but she’s not giving up the bon-bons.

All in all, the gorilla family dynamic wasn’t all that unfamiliar…well aside from the poo flinging. Thankfully we don’t have an issue with this in our family, though I would be willing to bet that we’d have fewer problems with loud unnecessary noise if this tactic was ever tried.