Cleveland Zoo Breathes Sigh of Relief As Gorilla Surrogate Holds Baby 'Jameela'
It was a match made in Heaven. Staff at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in Ohio are celebrating after a newborn gorilla was quickly accepted by a new foster family. The baby, named Jameela, was embraced within seconds of meeting her new mother. Causing the zoo workers to breathe a sigh of relief.
Staff really hoped that Jameela, a Western Lowland gorilla, would click with her new family. But they never expected it would go as well as it did.
The get-together was supposed to be an initial meeting between Jameela and her foster family. And it went better than zoo officials could've imagined. Right away Frederika, the oldest female gorilla at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, was taken with the months-old baby.
Related: Gorilla Mom Lovingly Watches as Her Baby Plays on the Swing for the First Time
"Freddy picked baby Jameela up within just a couple of seconds of being given access to her and that is exactly what we were hoping to see,” Cleveland Zoo animal curator Elena Less told Cleveland.com.
She said that they prepared for Jameela's arrival by putting a nest in the gorilla's enclosure. When they finally brought the baby to meet her fosters, they allowed Fredrika, troop leader Mokolo, and Freddy's other foster, Kayembe, to come up to her. This could have gone so many different ways, but luckily the best case scenario happened.
"Freddie immediately went in and picked her up and it was the biggest sigh of relief,” associate animal curator Laura Klutts added.
The meeting has been a long time coming. Jameela was born in January in Fort Worth, Texas via c-section — the first in the Fort Worth's zoo history, WFMJ reports. However after Jameela's birth her biological mother did not show maternal behavior towards her. They then brought Jameela to Cleveland with the hope that Fredrika would accept the baby as her own.
In total, the meeting lasted a little over two hours and was only cut short because Kayembe “got a little too rambunctious,” and zookeepers “hit a pause” so they could asses the gorilla's behavior, Cleveland.com reports. But overall they considered the meeting a success.
"That was the first time that Jameela was able to be picked up properly by a female gorilla," Klutz told WFMJ.
“That is pure gorilla and that is what they choose to do,” Fort Worth Zoo animal keeper Angie Holmes added to Cleveland.com, before sharing what an emotional journey this has been.
“We can train them to do all sorts of things, but we want them to want to do those behaviors, and to see that in action here was just an honor, especially since we had tried that many times at our facility," she said. "To see what that looks like in a successful way, it brought tears to my eyes.”
The zoo said that even though the meet-up was successful, visitors may not see the baby gorilla for a bit. But that's okay, she's got a lifetime of love ahead of her.
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