Western lowland gorilla · No. 9 of 22
Fort Worth Moves Its Homegrown Star Before He Challenges Dad
Gus was the first gorilla ever born there. That is exactly why he had to go.
The Deal
The Grades
Saint Louis
Replaced a departed silverback with two developmental males in one move. Fast rebuild of a position group.
Fort Worth
Correct and unavoidable. Only one silverback leads a troop, and Elmo is still in the building.
The Breakdown
Gus was the first gorilla ever born at the Fort Worth Zoo. His father, Elmo, comforted him as an infant. Ten years later the two of them had started wrestling in a way staff read as testing rather than play, and everyone in the building understood what that meant. Only one silverback leads a troop.
So the front office moved the homegrown star before the locker room fractured. Gus and Bukavu, 8, went together to Saint Louis to join a bachelor troop with Zachary and Kayin, both 10.
The people who do this work do not pretend it is easy. A primate supervisor with 35 years in the business called it heartbreaking, and added the line that explains the entire profession: when you come into this business, if you do not know it before you start, you will learn it rather quickly. A photographer who had documented Gus since he was five days old had to say goodbye too.
Saint Louis, meanwhile, had lost Bakari to Disney two weeks earlier. This is what a coordinated league looks like when it works: one team's succession problem is another team's restock, and the animals end up where the biology says they should be.
