Baby gorilla Jameela bonds with mom in second integration into gorilla troop at new zoo

Nicole Lopez
·2 min read

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo officials say Jameela, the first gorilla born via Cesarean section at the Fort Worth Zoo, and her surrogate mother are bonding more and she is successfully integrating into the zoo’s gorilla troop.

“Our team here at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has been working really hard to get Jameela ready to go back into the group,” said animal curator Elena Less in a video update Wednesday on X.

Zoo officials have been slowly working to integrate Jameela into the troop by starting with smaller groups, according to Less.

Wednesday marked the zoo’s second attempt at integrating Jameela into a sub-group of the gorilla troop, which includes her surrogate mother Fredrika, K.B. — another surrogate mother — and K.B.’s baby.

Zoo officials have observed Freddy frequently picking up Jameela, having her ride on her back, like she would with her surrogate son, Kayembe. Bonding continued Wednesday as Freddy was seen creating nests for Jameela and lying next to her.

Less said the zoo staff were excited as they also observed Freddy nursing Jameela for the second time.

“We are monitoring them and making sure everything continues to go well,” said Less.

The next phase for Jameela will include a second introduction to Kayembe.

Jameela’s first introduction to Freddy and other members of the troop lasted around two hours, and Freddy picked Jameela up within seconds, zoo staff said in an April 3 update on X. The time ended when Kayembe got “a little too rambunctious,” but the introduction was still considered a success.

Jameela has been at the Cleveland zoo since late March. She was born several weeks premature via emergency C-section at the Fort Worth Zoo on Jan. 5, but her birth mother failed to show any interest in caring for her. After two failed attempts to find a surrogate mother among the other females in the Fort Worth gorilla troop, the staff made the difficult decision to send the two-and-a-half-month-old gorilla elsewhere. The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo was chosen because it has had previous success with surrogacy.