Oh, baby! Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has a stork in its collection, but it actually doesn’t need it to deliver babies. Over the past year, the Zoo has been doing quite nicely as a nursery on its own, thank you.
In January, a female Western lowland gorilla named Jameela was born prematurely at the Fort Worth Zoo. But Jameela’s mother and other gorillas in the troop didn’t embrace caring for her. Zoo officials in Texas, plus the Gorilla Species Survival Plan, which manages the care for gorillas in accredited zoos, wanted a better solution.
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is known for its research, care and management of gorillas and has previously fostered baby apes. The zoo is also home to a super gorilla mom named Fredrika (“Freddy”). That elder female couldn’t say no to 8-pound Jameela when the infant (honest, that’s what baby gorillas are called) arrived in Cleveland in April.
“It was quite an honor to receive Jameela, and it says a lot about Freddy, who had seven of her own kids,” says Elena Less, Cleveland Metroparks animal curator. “Jameela is doing great, and she will stay here for quite a while.” (Adult female Western lowland gorillas weigh 150 to 200 pounds and can live to be in their 50s if cared for by humans.)
Sergi and Mila are 9-month-old Amur tigers, an endangered species who were born at the zoo last November. The cubs were the second litter born to the zoo’s female Amur tiger, according to Animal Curator Travis Vineyard. Amur tigers, whose native region is the far east side of Russia, are also endangered due primarily
to illegal trading and habitat loss.
“Cubs only stay with their mothers two years or so,” says Vineyard. “We will place the male first. It’s like a computer dating game, only there is no swiping left or right. We will find them good genetic partners and good homes.”
Zoo visitors who were watching the bonteboks at about 2 p.m. on April 20 were witness to something most people will never see — the birth of a baby bontebok. Zoo staff members were close by, but this was an experienced mother and a normal, unaided birth is usually best. The male calf makes the fifth bontebok to call Cleveland home.
Bonteboks are beautiful, mid-sized, chocolate brown and white antelopes with lyre-shaped horns on both sexes. According to Vineyard, bonteboks suffered a drastic population decrease in their native South Africa due primarily to hunting in the early 20th century. A farmer saved the species by corralling the last remaining 17 animals.
“It’s like how bison in America were overhunted,” says Vineyard. “But in many ways, the bontebok is a good recovery story.”
You can’t miss a baby Francois langur. Although its parents are black and white, their babies are bright orange. That helps mom and dad keep a watchful eye on wandering offspring in the wild who (like their parents) love to eat leaves. But it also makes them a target for predators, according to Less.
A male named Rupert (who sports a Mohawk hairdo) was born at the zoo on Jan. 4, becoming the fourth Francois langur in the RainForest building.
What is it about baby animals that melts most people’s hearts? Less believes it’s “those big baby eyes” and because watching the antics of toddlers — no matter what the species — is so entertaining.
“Also, when there is a baby, it’s an indication that things are going right and the animals are doing well,” adds Vineyard. “And we all want to see things go well.”
Mum’s the word about other zoo animals that might be currently expecting. But Vineyard points to the macropods (a family of marsupials that include kangaroos and wallabies) who would often throw gender reveal parties if that were possible.
“We have red kangaroos, gray kangaroos — at any given time there is probably a joey growing in a pouch of one of them,” says Vineyard.
