Every morning while the great apes of the L.A. Zoo are sleeping, Tania Prebble goes around distributing their food, medicine and other essentials.<\/p>\n
She tosses carrots, celery and other fibrous treats like cucumbers on top of the branches and leaves that are reminiscent of the apes\u2019 West Central Africa rainforest habitat.<\/p>\n
But as of late, Prebble\u2019s morning rounds have been a little different. She\u2019s also taken along bedding \u2014 a lot more than usual \u2014 to help shepherd in an L.A. Zoo \u201cbaby boom\u201d of great apes over the last four months.<\/p>\n
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The most recent primate was born Nov. 22 to 31-year-old N\u2019djia and silverback Kelly, 38, whose daughter Angela in 2020 was the first gorilla born at the L.A. Zoo in more than 20 years.<\/p>\n
The baby male gorilla has not yet been named by zoo staff, but he has already been introduced to his older sister.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom has definitely got a nice maternal hold and is very protective of the baby,\u201d said Prebble, animal keeper of the zoo\u2019s western lowland gorillas. \u201cAngela is starting to get a little bit more curious. She\u2019s coming up very gently, mom has been letting her get closer and do sweet little kisses.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Chimpanzee Yoshi\u2019s newborn holds onto her side while walking at the Los Angeles Zoo. Earlier this month, the L.A. Zoo welcomed the birth of a baby gorilla, the fifth and latest addition in a recent baby boom of adorable great apes that includes three chimpanzees and an orangutan. <\/p>\n
Along with Angela\u2019s newest sibling, the zoo has welcomed four other great apes recently.<\/p>\n
Throughout two weeks starting in August, two chimpanzees gave birth \u2014 35-year-old Yoshi gave birth to a female offspring, the first chimp born at the zoo in more than 10 years, followed by Vindi, an 18-year-old first-time mom, who delivered a female infant.<\/p>\n
Chimpanzee Zoe, also an experienced mother, gave birth to a male infant earlier in November. In October, orangutan mother Kalim had a baby offspring from father Isim, raising the number of Bornean orangutans at the zoo to seven. <\/p>\n
On a recent weekday morning as Prebble finished up her check on the gorilla\u2019s 26,000-square-foot enclosure and the zoo opened for business, children swarmed the barrier to catch a glimpse of the newborn gorilla clinging to his mother\u2019s chest. <\/p>\n
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Tania Prebble, animal keeper for the western lowland gorillas, serves them breakfast.<\/p>\n
Zoo docents hovered nearby to answer questions while parents crouched beside their toddlers and pointed to similarities with the apes\u2019 hands and feet.<\/p>\n
As exciting as this great ape baby boom is for L.A. Zoo visitors, it is by no means a surprise to its staff, who have prepared for this moment for years with a slate of contingency plans for every possible scenario.<\/p>\n
It is, however, a happy coincidence that all births happened within a four-month span. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith the last round of babies, I had a lot of visitors tell me that they started caring more about chimps because they saw these babies and they\u2019re so adorable,\u201d said animal keeper Amy Rosson, who mainly cares for the chimpanzees at the Mahale Mountains habitat. <\/p>\n
The baby boom is a direct result of breeding recommendations from the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums, which creates a Species Survival Plan that determines which animals to prioritize for breeding around the world and with which mates to reduce the risk of inbreeding and to conserve populations in human care.<\/p>\n
There are many questions these AZA matchmakers ask themselves before making breeding recommendations, and they extend beyond genetic and personality compatibility: Will these animals be able to create subgroups? Can the staff hand-rear the offspring if need be? Are there surrogate females at that institution that can step in if a mother rejects her infant?<\/p>\n
In the end, these efforts still fall back on timing and luck, zoo officials say.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also is up to the animals,\u201d says Dominick Dorsa II, director of Animal Programs. \u201cYou can have a breeding recommendation in place, but that doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019ll be successful with the pregnancy and birth.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Western lowland gorilla, N\u2019djia, 31, holds her baby born Nov. 22 at the zoo.<\/p>\n
For the zoo\u2019s newest parents, the western lowland gorillas, their SSP recommendation was made in 2023 and was straightforward.<\/p>\n
N\u2019djia was taken off birth control in order to breed with Kelly, which would give their daughter Angela the opportunity to have a playmate as she would in the wild. This will ultimately help with Angela\u2019s socialization and the well-being of the entire family.<\/p>\n
The Bornean orangutan\u2019s SSP, meanwhile, was created in February as part of a long-standing breeding recommendation because Kalim, the female, had not successfully conceived in the past. Orangutans have the longest inter-birth interval of all nonhuman primates; a single infant is born and cared for by its mother for seven to eight years before another infant is born.<\/p>\n
Breeding can be trickier for chimpanzees, who are multimate animals. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven though there\u2019s an alpha male, the more subordinate males within the troop will mate with the females and do what\u2019s called sneak breeding,\u201d said Candace Sclimenti, curator of mammals at the zoo. \u201c\u200aThe subordinates will take a female off and secretly breed her so that the alpha doesn\u2019t see.\u201d<\/p>\n
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First-time mom chimpanzee Vindi, 18, carries her newborn in her enclosure. <\/p>\n
In 2022, the zoo welcomed one of the most genetically valuable chimpanzee males in North America, Pu\u2019iwa, from Hawaii. As part of the chimpanzee troop\u2019s SSP recommendations the following year, Pu\u2019iwa was allowed to mate with two females. <\/p>\n
This resulted in the third pregnancy of 35-year-old female Yoshi, and the birth of their first female infant, coincidentally on Pu\u2019iwa\u2019s birthday, Aug. 20.<\/p>\n
First-time mother Vindi, on the other hand, had her pick of four males.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we left her with the group and let nature take its course,\u201d Sclimenti said. \u201cWe actually do a DNA test on the infant to determine paternity because we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zoo officials say the new infants will play a beneficial role in the well-being and dynamics of the entire chimpanzee troop, which is one of the largest of any zoo in the country with, now, 17 total individuals.<\/p>\n
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Visitors at the L.A. Zoo watch the western lowland gorillas eat breakfast.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aIt\u2019s really fun for the group because [the older chimps] love babies,\u201d Rosson said. \u201c\u200aWhen [the babies] get older, they\u2019ll hitch a ride on a different group member and it\u2019s just really a nice family dynamic to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
In preparation for the triple chimp births, the zoo created a separate maternal group with experienced mothers in order to ensure the acclimation of a first-time mother, Vindi, who they say is a bit spicy. Staff members were unsure if she\u2019d take to being a mother and have been pleased with what they\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was just so natural,\u201d Rosson said.<\/p>\n
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Amy Rosson, animal keeper for chimpanzees at the zoo.<\/p>\n
Once the maternal group is well-adjusted in their role, they will integrate back with the larger troop, zoo officials said.<\/p>\n
For the dozen staff members who care for the zoo\u2019s great apes, the baby boom has been a welcomed reminder of why some of them entered the profession in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone that\u2019s involved is here for the love of animals and the passion and wanting to leave the planet a better place than we have made it,\u201d said Sclimenti, the zoo\u2019s mammal curator.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Prebble said, she hopes that visitors can learn more about newborn primates, which are classified as endangered or critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. This is often due to dangers animals face in the wild, including poaching for bushmeat, habitat loss and degradation \u2014 in some instances caused by mineral hunting for electronics \u2014 as well as disease. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith the [population of gorillas] ranging from 300,000 in the wild to 300 or so in the zoos \u2014 it\u2019s a big impact what we can do ourselves to help,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every morning while the great apes of the L.A. Zoo are sleeping, Tania Prebble goes around distributing their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[54828,5261,3333,45427,45429,54827,54825,54829,54831,54826,23029,28233,48,52,51,47,50,49,54830,72],"class_list":["post-100586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-animal-keeper","tag-baby-boom","tag-birth","tag-breeding-recommendation","tag-chimpanzee","tag-daughter-angela","tag-experienced-mother","tag-female-offspring","tag-first-gorilla","tag-great-ape","tag-infant","tag-l-a-zoo","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-tania-prebble","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}