Lincoln Park Zoo's Silverback Gorilla Moving To Suburbs

By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 23, 2012 4:40PM

Spring is a time for moving and a few of the Western lowland gorillas at Lincoln Park Zoo will soon be calling new zoos home.

Females Tabibu and Makari will be going to Columbus Zoo and Kansas City Zoo, respectively. 31-year-old silverback JoJo is heading to the suburbs. He's going to Brookfield Zoo, where officials for both zoos hope he'll breed with Brookfield's female gorillas. JoJo's last day at Lincoln Park Zoo is April 10 and the zoo is throwing a going away bash for him.

Meanwhile two new male gorillas are joining blackbacks Amare and Azizi at Lincoln Park Zoo as part of the Gorilla Species Survival Plan, a cooperative breeding and management strategy that is intended to recreate social groupings that happen for lowland gorillas in the wild and, hopefully, bring the species off the endangered list.

In a press release from Lincoln Park Zoo, Steve Ross, PhD, assistant director of the
zoo’s Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes, said the addition of the new males will "be an excellent learning opportunity for researchers and guests at the zoo who can compare the traditional, silverback-dominated structure with the rarer all-male group right in the same building."