Gorilla Dies, Continuing Crappy Year for LP Zoo
By Andrew Peerless in Miscellaneous on Feb 15, 2005 3:20PM
Chicagoist always hears that bad things happen in threes, and if that's true, the Lincoln Park Zoo is hopefully at the “tail end” (har!) of a streak that has left three major zoo attractions grazing in the great unfenced pastures in the sky. October saw the tragic tuberculosis-related death of a 35-year-old African elephant named Tatima, while in January, another African elephant – Peaches – died of apparent old age (at 55, she was the oldest elephant in America). As if dealing with the death of two of its favorite animal buddies wasn’t enough, Peaches’s death thrust the zoo into the center of a national debate about the ethics of keeping elephants in captivity, especially in cold climates such as ours.
But, ugh! The plot thickened in non-pachyderm related fashion yesterday, when Kumba, a 35-year-old western lowland gorilla, was euthanized after a rapid decline in health due to kidney failure. Kumba wasn’t just any gorilla, but was in fact the first gorilla ever born in the zoo’s successful captive breeding program (45 additional gorilla babies have been birthed since Kumba came along in 1970!). She will be remembered as a shy, quiet soul, the beloved mother of Kowali and grandmother of Rollie and Mumbali.
Unfortunately, the Lincoln Park Zoo isn’t the only area animal refuge to lose a gorilla in recent months. In December, the Western suburban Brookfield Zoo bid adieu to Babs, the 30-year-old matriarch of its gorilla crew, who also died of kidney-related illnesses. And, as if the news of a gorilla death didn’t make Chicagoist sad enough on its own, the folks at Brookfield tugged (hard!) on our heartstrings by staging a gorilla wake for Babs, in an effort to help the rest of the clan deal with her death appropriately. Tissues, please...
All these bad animal happenings kinda remind Chicagoist of the well-publicized trials of Washington, D.C.'s National Zoo, who lost several of its famed red pandas, as well as a zebra and lion, under suspicious circumstances a few years back. Whatever the cause of Tatima, Peaches and Kumba's deaths, though, Chicagoist suspects no funny business and trusts that the folks at the Lincoln Park Zoo are doing the best they can to help the rest of their animals live the lengthy, happy lives they deserve.