Death of a Gorilla
August 2008

UK newspapers have reported on the death of a three-month-old old gorilla at Münster Zoo, Germany, and the grieving of his mother with headlines such as ‘We are not alone in experiencing grief’, ‘A mother's grief’ and ‘Ape's agony as baby dies’.

The story is one that will touch the hearts of many. The accompanying photographs show 11-year-old Gana holding Claudio’s lifeless little body, at times carrying him on her back. Zoo visitors were reduced to tears at the sight.

Press reports have shown sympathy for the zoo that such a sad event should happen and suggest that the death of the infant, and Gana’s rejection of a previous offspring last year, is somehow a mystery.

Yet there is actually little mystery. Deaths and rejection of young happen at zoos worldwide every day. The mystery is, perhaps, that the media rarely take an interest - unless it involves an iconic mammal such as a gorilla or polar bear.

Why is it that animals in zoos commonly fail to raise their young? Some zoos deliberately remove young and hand-rear them to use in displays or other publicity. But many animals simply lack the skills to raise offspring because they have been denied the opportunity to learn from family members. Learning behaviour that is so crucial for survival in the wild is stripped away by captivity. In turn, offspring who do survive go on to reject their young too.

The zoo’s director told the media that he did not intervene when keepers noticed Claudio wasn’t feeding properly because "we cannot keep on taking away children from a mother." Yet that is exactly what zoos do when they separate families and send them to other zoos. The debate should not be about whether it is natural for a zoo to intervene in these cases but whether zoos should exist at all.

The blame instead is put on the parent animal. When it was noticed that Claudio was becoming weak it was put down to “Gana neglecting and mistreating the infant.”

Animal Emotions

Whilst it is disappointing that the media has been unable to recognise the zoo’s role in the death of yet another animal, what is equally frustrating is the resulting discussion of emotions in non-human animals.

The Scotsman, whilst claiming that “there is no proof that gorillas feel grief”, quoted a primate expert as saying: "My feeling would be that she [Gana] would be going through very similar emotions to any mother." He felt it necessary to add: “But, of course, it's extremely difficult to prove scientifically” that non-human animals “have emotions like ours.”

A psychology professor told the Independent that, although other animals understand ‘loss’ (separation from a social companion), "studies of the mental processes of other animals ... indicate that the conceptual level necessary for understanding death has not been achieved."

This is typical of how ‘mainstream’ scientists either fail to recognise the rich emotional lives of animals, or are reluctant to admit that they do recognise it for fear of being labelled ‘unscientific’.

In his recent book The Emotional Lives of Animals, Marc Bekoff (Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, and a CAPS Patron) wrote: “my suspicion is that ‘doubt’ about animal emotions is espoused not because it serves science but because it protects the emotional needs of the scientist.” He adds: "a lack of certainty should not be an excuse to delay action. Sometimes we have to act on our best judgement, because we may never have ‘all’ the facts, and if we wait for absolute certainty, we might never do anything.”

Joerg Adler, director of Münster Zoo, said of Claudio’s death: “This, perhaps, is one of the greatest gifts that a zoo can bestow - to show ‘animals’ are very much like ourselves, and feel elation and pain. Gana lost a child, but I think in that loss, she taught people here so much.” Ironically, what a zoo can teach is that captivity is an unnatural place for any animal and that if we do not want to see such deaths continue we must phase out zoos and protect natural habitats for the benefit of all species.

A post-mortem examination of Claudio will take place once his mother relinquishes his body, but for now the zoo is describing his death as “some heart defect.”

Claudio’s death was not the fault of his mother. It was the fault of the zoo system that confines wild animals for entertainment.

Picture: www.stepniak-bild.de

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