Nature
PUBLISHED
A western lowland gorilla named Kimya has just given birth to her first baby at the Melbourne Zoo over the weekend.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.The VIP (Very Important Primate) arrived on March 14 just after 6 p.m. local time, according to a press release, and the birth took place at the Gorilla House night dens in the presence of the baby’s father, Otana, and the three older females in the group: Julia, G-Ann, and Yuska (the first gorilla to ever give birth in Australia).
Born at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Kimya came to Melbourne in October of 2013, and Otana arrived a month earlier from Howlett's Wild Animal Park in Kent, England. The two are part of an international breeding program for the critically endangered western lowland gorillas, which are native to Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon.
This is the seventh baby gorilla to be born at this zoo, and it’s the first time they’ve had a new baby gorilla since 2000. Zookeepers aren’t sure if the baby is a boy or a girl just yet. Here’s the video of the actual birth:
