Blijdorp Zoo is saying goodbye to its gorillas, the Rotterdam zoo announced last week. After the death of the silverback Bokito in April this year, the Blijdorp gorilla group of two women and five children, all from Bokito, was left without a leader. Introducing a new leader into the group is problematic: he can kill the children of his predecessor, says Blijdorp on its website. Bokito’s son Aybo has already moved to a French zoo. In the coming years, the remaining gorillas will be transferred to other zoos. There will not be a new permanent gorilla group.
“It was a difficult decision,” said current Blijdorp director Erik Zevenbergen. The zoo wants to focus more on species conservation. And Blijdorp does not have enough space to do that for gorillas. Once all the gorillas have left, the zoo wants to renovate the Riviera Hall where their shelter was.
Bokito (born in Berlin in 1996, since 2005 in Rotterdam) became a world-famous gorilla when he escaped in 2007 and took a female visitor with him.
Also read
Bokito’s obituary
But Bokito was not the only famous Rotterdam gorilla. The female lowland gorilla Sophie, who was the first gorilla to arrive in Blijdorp in 1949, was also a celebrity. She painted. Polygoon film footage from 1959 can be found on YouTube. “Sophie is not from yesterday: she paints abstractly,” was the comment. She was better than many human artists because, the commentator said, she had retained “the vitality of the jungle.” Sophie was captured from the wild, and died childless in 1977.
The group of gorillas in Blijdorp grew in the meantime, and in 1980 the first gorilla baby was born in the zoo, who was named Gino. But little Gino was rejected by her mother. Noes van Dam, the wife of the then Blijdorp director Dick van Dam, had to bottle feed the animal.
The couple’s son, Barend van Dam (now a manager at a veterinary pharmaceutical company), was also involved in the care of the Blijdorp gorillas. At our request, he recalls his memories of this, now that the gorilla era of Diergaarde Blijdorp in Rotterdam is coming to an end.
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Barend van Dam: “About 45 years ago, the gorilla man Ernst was the boss of the group of gorillas in Blijdorp. As a 16-year-old, my summer job was cleaning the animal enclosures in Blijdorp. Behind the gorilla enclosure I walked through the corridor with a wheelbarrow with some manure and a broom, behind the heavy steel hatch that separates the corridor from the gorillas. Just as I passed behind the hatch, Ernst took full swing at the hatch. Paralyzed with fear, I leaned on the broom. I’m sure Ernst was laughing…. He just knew there was someone new that he could just upset.
The gorillas in Blijdorp were given a truck tire to play with. Ernst messed around with the tape and at one point he carelessly folded it in half under his arm. Unbelievable what a force…
In 1980, Gino, son of Ernst and Salome, was born. But the baby gorilla was rejected by his mother Salome. That’s why he was raised in our home by my mother. The name comes from Gino from Gino’s gym, a type that Koot and Bie as Jacobse and Van Es brought on TV at that time.
Gino had a playpen with a lid, a diaper, and a T-shirt with ‘I’m bananas’. He was bottled on time. My mother was the only one who could change the diaper alone. If we, the children, had to change the diaper, the two of us had to work. One to hold his arms and legs, the other to change the diaper. Even then it was very difficult!
When women came to visit, Gino would act tough by drumming on his chest. When he was lifted up by his arms to put it away, he felt it was a humiliation. Gino would then sulk furiously in the corner. It is therefore not surprising that gorillas are classified as hominids in the taxonomy.
Blijdorp has decided to gradually stop keeping gorillas. That seems like a painful but wise decision to me. It is better to have fewer different animal species and larger enclosures than, as in the past, trying to keep as many animal species as possible in (too) small enclosures. Although it will be painful to visit Blijdorp without seeing those beautiful, imposing gorillas.”
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