New arrival in Dublin Zoo

03 Apr, 2011

A baby Western Lowland Gorilla has become Dublin Zoo's latest arrival and is drawing large crowds. Born to mother Lena on 27 March and weighing just 2kgs, the youngster has yet to be named. This is because zoo keepers are unable to decipher its gender due to Lena keeping the baby so close to her chest.

Belonging to an extremely rare species, now deemed critically endangered, the news is seen as a great success for the zoo. Dublin takes part actively in a pan-European breeding programme of 400 gorillas and is one of only a handful of international zoos to have a gorilla family living together. The numbers of these primates living in the wild is falling rapidly as a result of commercial hunting and the highly contagious Ebola virus.

Ciaran McMahon, the zoo keeper responsible for the gorillas said,