On
May 6th I left Gorilla Haven to drive to the Ape Conference in
Chicago, stopping to see my old gorilla pals in Toledo and Milwaukee
beforehand. Pete and Steuart
joined me in time to participate in the Ape Conference arranged by the
Brookfield Zoo. There were several
intense days, meeting new and sometimes famous primatologists and seeing old
friends while making new ones. Sessions
on various issues concerning all the apes -gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees,
bonobos and gibbons - were held during the day and into the night and by the
end, my brain was full! Some new
issues were discussed, like changing the name of gibbons and siamangs from
“lesser” apes to SMALLER apes, since the great apes (gorillas, chimps,
bonobos and orangutans) are larger but not necessarily “greater” than
gibbons! I couldn’t agree more!
There’s also some new information regarding re-classifying some of the ape species, including breaking the gorillas down into TWO species, with a total of 5 subspecies - click here to learn more about this.
After the Brookfield conference, we attended the TAG and SSP (Taxon Advisory Group and Species Survival Plan) meetings held at Lincoln Park Zoo (LPZ) in downtown Chicago. It was at the Gorilla SSP meeting that Steuart and Pete gave a 20 minute presentation about Gorilla Haven to the zoo people who will ultimately decide if we get gorillas, how many and which ones. It couldn’t have gone better! After it was over, one curator told one of his keepers in attendance that he expected 6 months notice, before he quit to go work at GH! Another curator jokingly told us she didn’t think zoos would want to send gorillas to GH, since the gorillas would never want to leave! All in all, it was great to see the years of hard work pay off and everyone agreed we’d done a good job planning and designing things. Now we just need to complete construction, get proper accreditation and licensing, which could still take months, if not well into next year, but we’re plugging away!
Meanwhile, we’ve purchased an additional 8.11 acres of adjoining land, making the total acreage for Gorilla Haven now just over 283 acres (up from 275). This parcel is strategically important, since it increases the road frontage and offers additional building sites and potential.