Goma is a stud. Tall, with broad shoulders. Big, muscular chest. Moody, dark eyes under a thick brow. A California boy, he's new to Colorado.
And the ladies are interested. Some merely sneaking peeks, while others boldly exchange looks. But that interest will simmer for a while before developing into something more ... interesting. Because Goma is a Western lowlands gorilla, born in captivity and just moved halfway across the country as part of a decades-long effort to keep the species genetically healthy. Fresh from his road trip, Goma will now spend at least a month in quarantine, until his veterinarians and keepers decide he's healthy and ready to play nice with his new troop. That might seem like a long time to wait, but it's just one small step in an intricate process of ape matchmaking.
When you go visit gorillas at the zoo—at least, those accredited by the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums—the animals you see live in elaborate pens meant to imitate their natural environments. But the gorillas in zoo enclosures are connected to other captive members of their species through what is known as the Species Survival Program. "We have roughly 353 gorillas in 51 different zoos," says Kristen Lukas, the program's coordinator for gorillas in the US, and director of conservation and science at Cleveland MetroPark Zoo.
Before moving to Colorado, Goma lived in Santa Barbara with his half-brother Kivu in a so-called bachelor troop. "They are typical males, sleep and eat all day," says Michele Green, Santa Barbara Zoo's curator of mammals. Bachelors indeed. At 425 pounds, Kivu was the dominant of the two, getting first pick of food and the choicest nap spots. He is also pretty steady: mellow, routine oriented. A catch.
Goma, the subordinate, is a little bit more reactive. When keepers come near, he puts on bigger dominance displays. Some days he skips his training. (Zookeepers teach gorillas to present their arms, chests, and faces to a protective mesh, that way don't have to get anaesthetized every time they need a checkup.) "But on the days he does train, he is very intense and learns a bunch of new behaviors in one day," says Green. The kid has potential, too.
In December of last year, Green got a phone call from Lukas, asking if she would consider the boys for transfer. Two separate female troops—one in Colorado, the other in Arkansas—were in need of new silverbacks. And genetically, Goma and Kivu have little relation to other captive members of their species. In other words, the Santa Barbara boys were hot commodities.
"We haven't gotten any new gorillas from the wild since the 1970s," says Lukas. "So if you have a male with DNA that is a .01 percent match with the rest of the population, you want to pair him up with an equally rare female." The genetic files for all US gorillas are kept at Lincoln Park Zoo, in Chicago. There, specialists help Lukas and her SSP team calculate how related each individual is to the total captive population. Goma and Kivu happened to be near perfect non-matches with the newly-single female troops in Colorado and Arkansas.
From there, it comes down to personality. Female troops are often considered as a unit, the various inter-gorilla relationships considered collectively when thinking about how they might pair with a male. In Arkansas, at the Little Rock Zoo, the females have diverse personalities who overall get along pretty well, but really looked to the last silverback to lead the troop. "Kivu is already dominant and a nice even keel," says Green. "It really just felt like a good fit."
But Goma had never led a troop, so Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Co. seemed better. "The females have been together for a long time, and it is a very stable family group who get along well, and do not have a lot of social issues for Goma to navigate," says Green. Plus the troop has some youngsters—a nine-year-old female and three-year-old male—so Goma can get some experience with them before becoming a daddy. Everything was going swimmingly. Now the zookeepers just had to arrange the meet.
For Goma, moving day came on May 9. After a thorough physical, his keepers gave him some sleeping medication and gently put his body in a gigantic steel crate. Soon, a forklift put the crate into Cheyenne Mountain's ZooMobile, a Dodge Sprinter wrapped with animal pictures. Then it was drive, drive, drive.
Gorillas are not the only animals that get moved around the country to maintain genetic diversity. The American Association of Zoos and Aquariums maintains over 450 separate Species Survival Plans, for everything from giraffes and elephants to birds and snakes. The base goal for each is to maintain 90 percent genetic diversity for 100 years. "Fortunately, gorillas are at a really good place, and we expect them to have 90 percent diversity for 400 years," says Lukas, the gorilla plan coordinator. Goma and his brother Kivu are the only two male gorillas being moved this year, along with seven females, who will be folded into existing troops so they can have an opportunity to mate with males who are not, ahem, their fathers.
Goma was a surprisingly chill roadtripper. "I was surprised to look back early on and see him doing some nest building, fluffing up alfalfa and hay with his hands, which is something gorillas do when they are comfortable," says Bredahl. He chowed down on road snacks—sadly, gorillas are vegetarians, so no In-N-Out Burger, just fruit, carrots, and romaine lettuce—and laid on his back, playing with his feet. He would stare at cars when they passed. "He was pretty active as we drove through some absolutely beautiful mountainous areas, so he might have been looking at the scenery, but you can't be sure," says Bredahl.
Twenty and a half hours later, the walkie talkies at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo crackled to life: "The ZooMobile has arrived with a special package." The staff was abuzz, the guests unaware. The female troop of gorillas had been moved to a large indoor enclosure so Goma could be forklifted through the outdoor yard to his special quarantine pen.
"From inside the gorilla yard, you would have seen these massive, Jurassic Park looking doors open, then a giant forklift drives through with a huge gorilla carrier on the front," says Erica Meyer, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's public relations manager. On the way across the outdoor enclosure, Goma let out a roar, alerting the six members of his new troop that their lives were going to be different from here on out.
The change will be gradual. First medical quarantine. Then Goma and the other gorillas will be able to touch each other through a protective mesh. "Then we'll have to play it by ear and see how comfortable the gorillas all are," says Mandy Hester, Cheyenne Mountain's gorilla keeper. "We'll be looking for signs of them being playful, relaxed postures from everybody."
Goma's brother, Kivu, left yesterday for his new home at Little Rock Zoo. The gorilla yard at Santa Barbara is empty, but not quite quiet. "We are doing some updates to the enclosure, replacing the roof and other stuff," says Green. Then, later this summer, two new males will arrive, a couple of teenage troublemakers from the Gladys Porter Zoo in Texas. "They are both old enough to leave the female troop, and need a space to get out from under their mothers and sisters," says Green.
This whole operation exists not just for Goma and the other captive gorillas, but for their cousins on the outside. Western lowland gorillas are the most plentiful of the gorilla species, with numbers ranging between 150,000 and 180,000. No zoo employee wants to be a bummer, and point out how depressingly low this is, but it inevitably becomes a part of the narrative, the explanation for why visitors are able to see gorillas in the first place. "They are here to be ambassadors for their wild counterparts," says Green. "The whole idea is the animals are at the zoo to make a connection with people, with the hopes that people will be inspired to change their behavior." You know, by doing things like recycling, turning the lights off when you leave the room, donating to a conservation program. Or maybe driving less.
