gorillamom

Here is the article they did for "damage" control after I made such a stink over his conditions. He's riddled with arthritis and sleeping on cold concrete!



Zoo Atlanta's apes aging with grace
Elderly suffer aches, youngsters with dignity

By MARK DAVIS /
Published on: 03/05/07
One old guy has only eight teeth left, so he regularly eats boiled food. Another sometimes sips the booster drink Ensure to get through the day.

The women? They routinely take Celebrex to ease joints slowed by arthritis. Sure, they love babies, but those youngsters sometimes are just too noisy, too wild.


John Spink/AJC
(ENLARGE)
Banga, 42, gets a drink from Kristina Krickbaum at Zoo Atlanta. The geriatric gorillas receive special care.

Your Turn
[an error occurred while processing this directive]


RELATED LINK:
• Video slideshow



They have their good days, their bad days. The best are spent in the sun, listening to the wind rattle about in a nearby magnolia. Sometimes they eat grapes, picking them off the ground.

Gorillas aren't squeamish about dirt.

Zoo Atlanta is home to five western lowland gorillas ranging from 42 to 48 years old. No other zoo in America has as many geriatric gorillas. In a species where 40 is considered old, Ozoum, Ivan, Shamba, Choomba and Banga are true senior citizens. Willie B, Zoo Atlanta's most famous gorilla, was 42 when he died of heart disease in 2000.

Ozoum — everyone calls him "Ozzie" — and Ivan, 46 and about 45 respectively, are silverbacks tipping the scales at 300-plus pounds. At one time, they were full of bluster and bravado, as so many young men are; these days, they prefer sniffing the breeze, watching the younger males stomp and posture.

The women have slowed, too. Choomba, 44, likes to sit on a slope separate from most of the other gorillas and watch the youngsters' antics. Shamba, the oldest at 48, will grab an infant gorilla and cuddle it every chance she gets. Banga is the youngest of the bunch, 42.

None of the five leaps and cavorts anymore. They've traded that energy for a certain wisdom, said Charles Horton, the zoo's curator of primates. In the twilight of their lives, their dignity shines.

"They can do more with a glance or look than others can [do] by charging around," said Horton, who works with the zoo's 24 gorillas, one of the largest collections in the country. Horton, 56, is something of an honorary silverback himself; he's been looking after the zoo's gorillas for 35 years.

On a recent afternoon, Horton leaned against a concrete wall and looked at Shamba and Choomba, sharing a sunny hillside. Both sat still as statues, a westerly breeze ruffling their fur, as they looked at some younger gorillas playing in the distance. They looked like grandmothers sitting apart from a family reunion.

Horton reached into a plastic cup and tossed a red grape to Shamba. She reached cautiously for the fruit with a stiff right arm. Horton nodded knowingly.

"Arthritis," he said.

Atlanta's aged quintet is part of a select group. Of 378 gorillas in U.S. zoos, 36 — less than 10 percent — are 40 or older. Of that group, 25 are female.

Those findings come from records at the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a licensing and standards agency for more than 200 institutions, including Zoo Atlanta. The AZA keeps track of species' gene pools for breeding purposes, so-called species survival plans. Gorilla gorilla gorilla, the western lowland gorilla, has its own plan.

The oldest gorilla in the country? Jenny, who lives at the Dallas Zoo, is 54, said Dr. Kristen Lukas, the curator of conservation and science for the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Lukas also heads the committee that oversees the gorillas' survival plan for the AZA.

In the wild, Lukas said, gorillas may live to be 45. They survive longer in captivity because they get better care, she said.

Lukas, who worked at Zoo Atlanta from 1993 to 1998 as part of her psychology graduate work at Georgia Tech, understands that longevity has a price. Teeth fall out. Hearts get weaker. Menopause changes a female's role in a gorilla hierarchy. A once-dominant male gets shoved aside by a muscular young upstart.

Yet the old gorillas have not outlived their usefulness.

"They are a very valuable part of a group," Lukas said. "I think, in many ways, of how we look to our elders for boundaries and guidance. They [older gorillas] are role models."

And not just for their peers. Lukas, who has three sons, said she has paid close attention to the older female gorillas at the Cleveland Zoo.

"I have taken some of my parenting inspiration from them," she said.

On a recent day, Ozzie and Banga sat in their sleeping quarters inside a cinderblock building behind the outdoor exhibit where most of the zoo's other gorillas lazed in the sun. The structure is where generations of Atlantans came to gaze at Willie B, who spent most of his life behind bars until the zoo created a natural habitat for him in 1988.

With Ozzie was Jassiri, 8, keeping his dad company. In the next compartment, Banga sat beside her son, Mbeli, a restless 5-year-old.

Jassiri, all legs and arms, hopped about when Horton entered the building. Ozzie hardly moved, watching the curator with curious eyes.

Ozzie had just polished off a handful of sliced, boiled potatoes, suitably softened for old gums. He tilted a head the size of a watermelon when Horton cracked open a container of cherry-flavored, low-fat Yoplait yogurt.

Ozzie leaned his 314 pounds against the door, lips open. Horton dipped a spoon into the yogurt and stuck it in the gorilla's mouth. The treat was gone in less than a minute.

"Lick the spoon?" Horton asked. The silver spoon nearly vanished in the gorilla's mouth.

Moments later, Ozzie climbed into a palm-frond hammock, built 5 feet off the ground. He flopped back and watched Jassiri, who periodically banged a bucket.

Horton smiled at Ozzie. When the silverback was younger, said Horton, he wouldn't tolerate such a racket. "He takes things more in stride now."

Mbeli answered Jassiri's drum beat with a booming thump yelp that echoed to the sky. Banga cast him a quick look — a mother's warning glance?

All the gorillas are in good shape, said Dr. Maria Crane, the zoo's senior veterinarian. But, like old houses whose timbers have settled, they are creaky.

The oldsters usually stay inside their sleeping quarters if the temperature outside doesn't get above 50.

Some mornings they wake with achy joints; caretakers give them peanut butter sandwiches with a Tylenol tablet slipped inside. And, on those days when an old gorilla just doesn't feel like eating, zoo workers reach for Ensure or Centrum Silver.

Crane tries to get them outside as much as possible. "They need their exercise," she said. Ozzie and Ivan, she noted, have to watch their weight; male gorillas are prone to heart disease.

Tooth disease pops up, too. A few years ago, a dentist gave a sedated Ozzie a root canal.

Ivan, with eight teeth — gorillas normally have 32 — has special needs. Nearly everything the old silverback eats gets boiled, steamed or soaked so he can gum it down.

"We do whatever we need to do to make sure our animals get what they need," Crane said.

What they need most, Horton thinks, is the sun on their fur. The sound of magnolia leaves rattling in the wind. The happy discovery of a grape in the dirt. The knowledge that youngsters are nearby.

Getting old is not easy. But age has its privileges.

__________________

The Clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power,
To tell just when the hands will stop
On what day or what hour.
Now is the only time we have,
So live it with a will,
Don't wait until tomorrow,
The hands may then be still.