Last week we started the introduction program of Adjibolo to the resident gorillas in the Limbe Wildlife Centre. We had selected Nyango as her new foster mother, as she seemed to be the one most interested in Bolo and we thought she would be easily managed into proper motherhood. This expectation did not come true. Nyango was not paying proper attention to Bolo, so we decided to discontinue this effort.

Our second choice was Brighter, a very gentle female. And now Brighter turns out to be a very good choice. She is very happy to mother over Bolo, picking her up carefully, putting her on her back and letting her sleep on her belly. And Adjibolo loves it. Although in the first half hour she was a bit afraid, she quickly started to appreciate this big hairy mother. It is no problem to feed Adjibolo, as Brighter just patiently watches over her while she drinks the milk from the bottle. After a week of spending more and more hours during the day, we decided on Friday that it was time to let them stay together for the night. Bama, one of our gorilla keepers, stayed the night with them. We were delighted to see that Brighter spend the whole night on the ground, not risking Adjibolo to fall from the hammock while asleep. They both slept through the night, until just after six when Bama was there to feed Adjibolo a bottle of milk. The night after that went exactly the same.

We are all very happy that this first part of the introduction goes so smoothly. We will now give mother and daughter some time to bond and then we will start introducing other members of the group. They are all impatiently waiting for the day that they can play with the new gorilla. If all goes well, Brighter will be there to protect Adjibolo from gorillas that play too roughly.

Simone de Vries
Assistant Project Manager

help us and share this