ISBN: 0814207669

Just as gorillas have a special allure for zoo visitors around the world, the Columbus, Ohio, zoo has a special place in the history of the care and captive breeding of the greatest of th… More...

Just as gorillas have a special allure for zoo visitors around the world, the Columbus, Ohio, zoo has a special place in the history of the care and captive breeding of the greatest of the great apes. Columbus was the site of the world's first captive gorilla birth in 1956, and in the more than four decades that have followed since that historic day, twenty-six more gorillas have been born into the Columbus Zoo gorilla family. Gorillas in Our Midst chronicles the characters and events that have made the Columbus gorilla program world renowned. From the brutal capture of the zoo's first gorillas in the rain forests of Africa to the birth and mother-rearing of a fourth generation of offspring, author Jeff Lyttle takes the reader through the triumphs and tragedies of a captive gorilla program that is on the leading edge of the effort to preserve the endangered western lowland gorilla. Among the fascinating events Lyttle narrates are the birth of Colo, the world's first captive-born gorilla, now the mother of three, the grandmother of fifteen, and the great-grandmother of two gorillas, and still going strong at the age of forty. He also tells the story of the first gorilla twins born in the Western Hemisphere-Macombo and Mosuba-as they grow from playful infants to important members of gorilla troops at two American zoos. Lyttle has interviewed more than twenty current and former members of the Columbus Zoo staff to recount the details of this compelling story. Jack Hann animals,apes and monkeys,biological sciences,nature,nature and ecology,primatology,science,science and math,science and scientists,science and technology Science & Math, Ohio State University Press<

ISBN: 0814207669

Chronicles the forty-year history of the gorilla program at the Columbus Zoo, a program dedicated to the preservation of the endangered western lowland gorilla, from the first birth of a … More...

Chronicles the forty-year history of the gorilla program at the Columbus Zoo, a program dedicated to the preservation of the endangered western lowland gorilla, from the first birth of a captive gorilla in 1956 to today. UP. animals,apes and monkeys,biological sciences,nature,nature and ecology,primatology,science,science and math,science and scientists,science and technology Science & Math, Ohio State University Press<