{"id":223094,"date":"2025-10-24T17:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T17:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/223094\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T17:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T17:04:08","slug":"baby-gorilla-venus-enjoys-spooky-halloween-pumpkin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/223094\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby gorilla Venus enjoys &#8216;spooky&#8217; Halloween pumpkin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">A baby gorilla at London Zoo has started the Halloween festivities early by tucking into a &#8220;spooky&#8221; pumpkin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Venus, who is one year and eight months old, was treated to carved pumpkins stuffed with pulses alongside other <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-london-68294970\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">western lowland gorillas<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">While <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/av\/uk-63759408\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">silverback gorilla Kiburi<\/a> got to the pumpkins first, baby Venus showed a &#8220;great enterprising spirit,&#8221; according to the zoo, and munched into the Halloween treats under the watchful eye of her mother Effie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Daniel Simmonds, zoological operations manager at London Zoo, said: &#8220;We wanted to make sure the animals didn&#8217;t miss out on the fun.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Zookeepers described Venus as a curious and confident baby who plays constantly. She has a half-sister called Juno, who also enjoyed the Halloween treats, they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Mr Simmonds added: &#8220;Gorillas are very curious by nature, and they really enjoyed discovering their stuffed surprises in spooky pumpkin shape.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">London Zoo will host its Boo at the Zoo event from 25 October to 2 November, which will include a silent disco, animal talks and craft activities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A baby gorilla at London Zoo has started the Halloween festivities early by tucking into a &#8220;spooky&#8221; pumpkin.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-223094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}