GORILLAS LAND

The Franklin Park Zoo is a 72-acre (29 ha) zoo located in Boston, Massachusetts. It is currently operated by Zoo New England, which also operates the Stone Zoo. The zoo is located in the northeast portion of Franklin Park, Boston's largest park. The zoo was opened to the public in 1912 and it has been accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) since 1990. Keeping more than 1000 animals of about 220 species, the mejor exhibits of the zoo are Kalahari Kingdom, Serengeti Crossing, Outback Trail, Tropical Forest and Bird's World. Their first gorillas arrived from Africa as babies in 1967. The male, Pan-ku, arrived in September and the female, unnamed, in June. Thirty-two years later, on August 8th 1999, Kiki had the first baby gorilla of the park, giving birth to Kira, who is currently living at Philadelphia Zoo.

The facility for gorillas is placed inside of a building called The Tropical Forest, which opened in 1989 and is shared by other species. Gorillas are mostly kept at the indoor yard, which offers the gorillas a 3D sensation giving them a lot of opportunities to climb on trees, trunks and ropes. It includes a room in front of it to allow training demostrations viewable by the public. The outside exhibit is an opened moated exhibit of approximately 14.000 sq ft and includes natural grass and plantings with a water course and waterfall. The off exhibit area consists of four individual spaces with a combined total of 500 sq ft. One of the bedrooms includes an scale to weight the gorillas and other a traning area.

  
Photos © Scott Richardson


Zoo New England keeps a total of 7 gorillas in three groups:

GROUP 1 GIGI KIKI KIMANI KAMBIRI AZIZE

GROUP 2 LITTLE JOE

GROUP 3 KITOMBE

(Note: Group 1 is rotated with Group 2
and Group 3, so they share 50% of their time
with Little Joe and 50% with Kitombe).