{"id":193052,"date":"2026-05-15T06:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T06:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/193052\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T06:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T06:24:15","slug":"zoos-in-pittsburgh-and-boston-just-hashed-out-a-blockbuster-one-for-one-gorilla-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/193052\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoos in Pittsburgh and Boston just hashed out a blockbuster one-for-one gorilla trade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Certain trades are so huge that they changed the course of a sport. Babe Ruth to the Yankees, Wayne Gretzky to the Kings and more recently, Luka Doncic to the Lakers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That’s what I think we’ve got in a blockbuster gorilla trade between the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium and Franklin Zoo in Boston<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We’ve got a one-for-one deal that is going to shake up the gorilla market going forward, with Pittsburgh shipping a 7-year-old male western lowland gorilla, Frankie, to Beantown in exchange for Little Joe, a 33-year-old silverback.<\/p>\n

\"Little <\/p>\n

Gorilla Little Joe has spent most of his career in Boston, but has been dealt to Pittsburgh for an up-and-coming young prospect. (Staff photo by Lisa Hornak\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh is getting a veteran presence in its enclosure, while Boston gets a highly touted prospect who will have some considerable ass-scratching, feces-throwing shoes to fill.<\/p>\n

According to The Pittsburgh Tribune, Frankie will become part of a “bachelor group” with two other males, which means Boston is really building toward the future.<\/p>\n

As you might expect, the internet was going, well, ape s–t over this.<\/p>\n

I knew that this sometimes happened with zoos, swapping animals around. In fact, when I was a kid, I remember it was a big deal that my local zoo made a big free-agent signing and brought in an albino alligator.<\/p>\n

‘FORREST,’ THE LAST ESCAPED MONKEY FROM MISSISSIPPI HIGHWAY CRASH, FINDS NEW LIFE AT NEW JERSEY SANCTUARY<\/a><\/p>\n

He carried the franchise for a few seasons.<\/p>\n

But I want more of this. I want to see zoos cutting deals to assemble the best lineups. And I don’t mean one-for-one species deals.<\/p>\n

ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!<\/a><\/p>\n

I’d love to see how many flamingos it’s going to take for a rhino. I bet it’s a lot. Hell, may have to throw in a first crack at an opportunity to sign a panda on loan from China<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Little <\/p>\n

A change of scenery could be just what the veterinarian ordered for Little Joe. (Photo by David L. Ryan\/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

I hope to keep an eye on this to see how it pans out. Little Joe has a bit of a troubled past. In 2003, he escaped his enclosure and injured a kid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n

Hey, nobody’s perfect.<\/p>\n

So, maybe the blue-collar environment in the Steel City will do him some good and help find his game because anyone who knows apes \u2014 and I’ve seen all the Planet of the Apes films, so I think I know what I’m talking about \u2014 knows he still has some tread on the tire.<\/p>\n

Matthew Reigle is a writer for OutKick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Certain trades are so huge that they changed the course of a sport. Babe Ruth to the Yankees,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85979,85978,73,75,74,29111],"class_list":["post-193052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-natural-science","tag-outkick-culture","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-wild-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}