just like they would with a mother gorilla, at the same time she lives right there with the other gorillas, they can see her and she can see them, she smells them. we don t raise her in a nursery ward, he s in the gorilla ward, learning how to be a gorilla, the other gorillas get to touch her and smell her through a mesh, an introduction mesh. all leading up to, oh, probably between three and five months when we will actually do the physical introduction to one of the females. and i know that s the goal, but after caring for this baby for so many months, i imagine it s going to be difficult when you actually accomplish this and you have to hand gladys over. have you prepared yourself for that? well, you know, be honest with you, it s exactly the opposite for us. the day that we get gladys in with that mother gorilla is going to be the happiest day for the gorilla people because she s not our baby.
fat chance thanks for that. a baby gorilla, fat chance there s the book. baby gorilla, her name is gladys, rejected by her own mother. now several human surrogates are raising gladys the the gorilla, meet one of the caretenders pretending to be a mama gorilla.
stay in the wild so our goal is not to put her in the wild but get her back with a gorilla mother. they have to learn 13 different vocalizations and facial expressions, and lots of rules of etiquette in gorilla society. from day one they re learning a language and social structure and life lessons so in the absence of a mother doing this and unfortunately her mother didn t take care of her but the people at gladys porter zoo in brownsville did an excellent job with gladys until we could come up here with a surrogate mom. until we can get to that point we have to do everything with gladys that a mother gorilla would be doing with gladys at the right age. ron that means when you go to work every day, you re pretty much a gorilla, acting like a gorilla mother. what specifically will you doing to mimic a gorilla besides that lovely vest you re wearing? we have about a team of about ten people that are actually
between three and five months, when we will actually do the physical introduction to one of the females. i know that s the goal, but after caring for this baby for so many months, i imagine it s going to be difficult when you actually accomplish this, and you have to hand gladys over. have you prepared yourself for that? well, you know, to be honest with you it s exactly the opposite for us. the day that we get gladys in with that mother gorilla will be the happiest day for the gorilla people. she s not our baby and not our pet. she s a gorilla. primates make terrible pets and unfortunately there s a lot of them out there in people s hands. that s not the message we re trying to impart. gorillas should be with gorillas and that s the day when we re going to be happiest is when gladys goes in with her new gorilla surrogate mom and leaves us but you can t help but be attached you re right and that s part of being a good zoo person.
you balance the science with empathy and you d be a cold hearted person if you didn t have some sort of emotional attachment to gladys. what if the other gorillas aren t accepting of her? i m sure you re doing everything gorilla like but as humans can you replicate everything so, could there be a chance she s not accepted? fortunately zoos have a lot of experience in this sort of thing, and we ve all pulled our resources many years ago and put together a comprehensive baby gorilla sur gas surrogacy protocol, so we re confident and we have about four different females at cincinnati that are all candidates and while we re taking care of gladys, we re watching them, too, to see which one of those females has the keenest interest in her and will make the best candidate, all to help set ourselves up for success that this will work. ron evans from the cincinnati zoo so good to talk with you