FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas zoo is celebrating a special delivery – the birth of a baby gorilla.
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and KXAS-TV, the Fort Worth Zoo announced Wednesday that gorilla Gracie and her partner, Elmo, welcomed a son Sunday morning. The unnamed infant marks the second western lowland gorilla ever born at the attraction; the first was his brother, Gus, who arrived six years ago.
The baby, who weighed 4 to 5 pounds at birth, “is staying close to his mother as he meets other troop members and gets acclimated to his surroundings in the zoo’s World of Primates habitat,” the zoo wrote in a Facebook post. “The pair continues to bond but are also fully integrated into the troop, mimicking family dynamics in the wild. He can be seen in both indoor or outdoor areas of the habitat at various times during the day, which will be dictated by weather conditions and his activity level.”
Guests also can see the new arrival Nov. 19 as the zoo celebrates its 30th anniversary, the news outlets reported.
The western lowland gorilla is a subspecies of the western gorilla, which is critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Nearly 362,000 western lowland gorillas remained in the wild in 2013, but their population is decreasing, the organization reported.
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