How to meet Fort Worth Zoo’s baby gorilla before she moves to her new home next week

The public has a chance to meet Jameela, the first gorilla born by Cesarean section at the Fort Worth Zoo, before she moves to her new home in Cleveland.

Jameela will be with her caretakers in her indoor habitat in the World of Primates on Saturday and Sunday, from 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 5 p.m., the Fort Worth Zoo announced on social media Friday.

Visitors can bring cards or pictures for Jameela and the zookeepers, according to the post.

Jameela was born several weeks premature via emergency C-section on Jan. 5 after her mother, Sekani, began exhibiting symptoms of preeclampsia. Sekani recovered from the procedure, but never showed any interest in mothering her infant.

After attempts to find a surrogate mother for Jameela among the other females in the gorilla troop failed, zoo staff made the difficult decision to send the two-and-a-half-month-old gorilla to a facility with previous surrogacy success.

Jameela will be leaving Fort Worth for the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo next week.

The infant has been under the constant care of primary gorilla keeper Angie Holmes and a multitude of other zoo staff since her birth. They’ve held, fed and played with her around the clock and watched her grow from just 3 pounds to the active infant she is today.

Jameela’s caretakers acknowledge that saying goodbye is hard, but it’s always been their goal that she be raised by gorillas.

“It’s hard, but it’s going to be good for her,” Holmes said. “And it’ll be nice to see her flourish and know that at least this part of her life, we had something, and we’ve set her on that path to be able to be successful.”

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