It is magical working the Ape House
on a holiday, Thanksgiving and Christmas especially. Normally two keepers
arrive at 6:00 a.m but today I am working alone. The routine will be cursory
with minimal cleaning, double feeding and out the door to family and friends by
11:00 a.m.
The walk across zoo grounds is cold
on this Christmas morning. Fresh snow sparkles, unmarked by footsteps other
than sometimes a rabbit’s distinctive print or a bird’s funny scribble moving
off into the distance. The air is crisp and
clean, the sun just emerging. The snow crunches beneath my feet. The zoo feels special as if it is mine, the
grounds pristine and so very quiet.
Opening the kitchen door, the
gorillas elicit their usual rolling rumbles, their smell hits me like a wave.
It’s a good scent, deep and musky, an unwashed body smell – not the sickly sweet
gaggy kind just the healthy clean kind….something we humans fight so hard of
being accused of or exposing ourselves to.
The Ape House is relaxed as I move the
gorillas for perfunctory cleaning of their cages and throw in bales of fresh
hay. Tomorrow will be heavy cleaning day but for now there is a feeling of a
holiday in the ape house, they know it and I do too.
Every morning they are separated
into individual cages to allow us to hand-feed their fruits, drinks and special
dietary needs. This is also a time for
them to relax with their food, no competition, no looking behind to see if
someone else wants what they might have. They are happy today with the double-feeding,
lots of contented rumblings going on. Toni, a female born and raised at
Columbus is so excited she can barely contain herself, her vocalizations border
of some sort of gorilla ecstasy, she is “talking” excitedly in sing-song
high-pitched sounds. She is simply beside herself when she sees the double-dose
of fruits and veggies.
Today I have cut up their greens
super fine scattering throughout their cages. This will keep them busy for a
long time, some are already methodically shifting wads of hay to peer underneath
for goodies. It looks a bit like a game of peek-a-boo with food being the
incentive. They receive popcorn, dried cereal and sunflower seeds on a daily
basis but today extra portions are given. Our zoo Docents not only bring the
keeper staff home-made cookies and fudge for the holidays, they also bring out-of-
season fruits for the gorillas. So today I raid the fridge and make a huge bin
of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and raisins, adding some peanuts and
voila a holiday potpourri is spread throughout their cages as well.
After cleaning, they are back
together in a jiffy. I hose down the
side, front and back keepers aisles, do the dishes, wipe down the kitchen. My
reward – sitting on the front aisle bench, observing gorillas. Shafts of light cast
their way through the skylights into the cages, reminiscent of light coming
through stained-glass windows in a cathedral, bits of hay dust dance in the
light as the gorilla make nests, disturb bedding in search of food bits and
just settling in.
They are relaxed, the building warm
and cozy. The youngsters are busy playing, some having a game of chase - up and
down ladders, into chutes in and out of different cages. While the adults are
comfortably settled in, several have a cache of food in front of them they have
mined from the detritus of hay…to eat at their leisure while lounging on thick
hay beds. Females with infants keep a close eye on their offspring when the
youngsters come running by in their routinely reckless manner. The infants are
fascinated with the older kids, they want to play but their Mom’s are more
circumspect, they know how rough the play can get.
There is laughter, every once in a
while an adult elicits a friendly belch vocalization “haa-hummmphhh”reassuring everyone that all is good with the world. I watch closely as the gorillas interact. Who
is pal’s with whom, who is irritating another? Near the bottom of the cage,
close to where I am sitting, a female lies on her back, her right leg crossed
over the bent knee of her other leg, right arm extended towards me, she shakes
it a bit, while vocalizing to me and I crack up. She does it again, as if she
knows I will get a kick out of it. She looks like some sort of languid
aristocratic princess benignly surveying her palace and and its inhabitants –
willing to mix with the masses for a brief time.
In another cage, Pongi is the
undisputed matriarch of Mumbah’s cobbled together group of females, juveniles
and babies. In this same group Lulu is
raising her young daughter Kebi. Pongi currently
does not have an infant of her own–her juvenile son is off with the other
youngster no longer in constant need of his mother’s hands-on nurturing. Lulu
does have a baby though and Pongi usually so composed and self-contained, not known
for interacting with other females, sits directly across from Lulu. Lu’s daughter is big enough to wander away
from her mom but Lulu keeps her close as she eyes Pongi cautiously. Pongi
begins to flail her arms up and down, up and down in sheer excitement at the
proximity of a baby. She is just begging to touch that baby, her behavior at
once desperate and comical. Lulu looks on with a deadpan face – as only a gorilla
can – and keeps a firm grip on her kid. It’s evident to me that that won’t be
happening, and Pongi much to her credit recognizes that as well, graciously acquiescing.
There are so many of these exceptional moments, witnessing the obvious as well as subtle social interactions
that others will never have the opportunity to observe. When I leave the Ape House, done for the day,
smelling of gorillas, looking forward to seeing my family, it is snowing again,
the sun casting deep blue shadows on the mounds of uneven snow and on my
earlier footprints.
