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| Ngozi with her newborn |
Happy times at the Toronto Zoo a Ngozi, a western lowland gorilla, has given birth to a baby overnight Thursday. Mom and baby are both healthy and are doing well. The father of this newborn, whose gender has not been determined, is Charles. The zoo says this is Ngozi’s second birth; her son Nassir was born in September 2009. Ngozi arrived at the Toronto Zoo from the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle in 2008, specifically to breed with Charles. Their newest baby is the 10th of this endangered species to be sired by Charles and born at the Toronto Zoo. “There has been a decline in wild populations of gorillas worldwide because of hunting, disease and habitat loss, according to the zoo’s curator of mammals. The zoo said western lowland gorillas are found in the rain forests of Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. An adult male can weigh 200 kg and adult females about 100 kg. Females mature at about eight years old, but typically don’t breed until they’re 10. They usually give birth to a single baby, after an average gestation period of 265 days. With the new unnamed baby’s arrival, the zoo is home to seven gorillas: three adults and four youngsters.
