This occurred at the Brookfield Zoo (in Chicago) near me.  More info on the
female gorilla. She is currently nursing (of course) her own baby; born in
Feb. 1995.  She was a hand-raised baby herself and was introduced into the
Gorilla troup at Brookfield in 1991 as a 3 yr old.  Her current baby is her
first.

The zoo keepers kept talking about how "close" she is to the keepers! They
expected she would "nurture" so were not surprised at her behavior.  What
is scary is that the 3 yr old fell 30 feet onto concrete (is still in
serious condition in hospital) and that male gorillas might NOT have been
quite so nurturing had they got to him first!

Everyone is oohing and ahing about the female gorilla.  Have said nothing
about her baby (who was riding on her back at the time of the incident and
stayed there while she carried the child to the door of the enclosure).
There have been some shots of him carried ventrally and nursing (as they
do).




Def. of LC service: "We are all faced with a series of great opportunities
brilliantly disguised as impossible situations."
Kathleen G. Auerbach,PhD, IBCLC (Homewood, IL)- [log in to unmask]
WEB PAGE: http://www.mcs.com/~auerbach/lactation.html
LACTNET archives http://library.ummed.edu/lsv/archives/lactnet.html