Like landlords coming to visit prospective tenants, the mayor of Louisville and the director of the Louisville Zoo showed up in Chicago on Friday to meet two gorilla families about to move to their town.
The gorillas were on their best behavior, although some of the youngsters did their best to startle the visitors by crashing into the windows of their habitat at Lincoln Park Zoo, leaving smudged footprints and handprints.
As Mayor David Armstrong and Zoo Director William Foster spoke to reporters, one of the gorillas, Debbie, repeatedly rapped on the window.
Armstrong and Foster were charmed.
“Very seldom does a mayor have the opportunity to meet new residents of his city before they even move there, especially so up close and odorously as I have today,” said Armstrong, as he sniffed the gorilla musk that permeates Lincoln Park’s aging ape house.
The zoo’s 12 gorillas soon will move to a new $15 million, 4-acre gorilla habitat in the Louisville Zoo while Lincoln Park tears down its cramped ape house to build a $29 million facility.
The first family, headed by Frank, a 38-year-old silverback, and including 39-year-old Debbie, 40-year-old Helen and two juveniles, will be trucked to Louisville this month. In November, a family headed by JoJo, a 22-year-old silverback and including three younger adult females and two juveniles will make the trip.
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The plan is to bring all the gorillas back when the new facility opens in 2005, although Kevin Bell, Lincoln Park Zoo director, cautioned that Frank, Helen and Debbie are quite old and may be too frail by then to return.
The Louisville facility will be a change in lifestyle for the gorillas, and Lincoln Park Zoo’s gorilla behavior researcher will be watching closely.
“Gorillas by nature are neophobic animals, afraid of new situations and anything out of the ordinary,” animal behaviorist Steve Ross said.
The families will continue to live separately but will have bigger living spaces in Louisville and an opportunity to be removed from human visitors. They also will have nearly year-round access to outdoor areas, compared with limited access in Chicago.
Many of the younger apes were born at Lincoln Park Zoo and never have been away. Frank, Helen and Debbie haven’t been anywhere else in 25 years, having moved to the ape house in 1977 when it was brand new.
“The funny thing is, Helen, the oldest one of them all, is really the most adventurous one,” Ross said.