The staff of the Gladys Porter Zoo are mourning the loss of a critically endangered western lowland gorilla.
“Gladys Porter Zoo staff are shocked and devastated to relay the news that Martha, a beloved member of the zoo’s western lowland gorilla troop, passed away unexpectedly last Tuesday night,” reads a statement from the zoo.
The gorilla was 32 years old.
“Martha loved to interact with the public,” Curate for Mammals Walter DuPress said Wednesday. “I remember she’d put her ear to the glass, tap and wait for guests to tap back. She was also a proud mom who loved to show off her and her sisters’ babies to visitors.”
Martha was the last gorilla baby born to the zoo’s matriarch and patriarch, Katunga and Lamydoc, an icon of the Brownsville facility.
Lamydoc and Katunga produced 11 offspring, but Katunga was never very interested in raising any of them, zoo officials said.
“Accordingly, Martha was raised by staff and then successfully integrated back into the troop,” the statement read. “Despite being hand-raised, she was an excellent mother to her six offspring, including Asha and Megan (now on loan to the Dallas Zoo) and Tracy James (now on loan to the Houston Zoo). Another one of her offspring, Margaret, still resides at Gladys Porter Zoo and is now rearing a baby of her own.”
Martha’s last baby, Kruger, is nearly 3 years old and is being cared for by the zoo’s gorilla troop, under the protective eye of his father, Mbundi, the zoo stated.
“On the day of her passing, Martha was slow to respond to her keepers in the morning,” the zoo reported. “She was already being treated for a urinary tract infection but showed no symptoms of something more serious.”
Keepers were shocked and heartbroken to find she had passed away during the night.
“Upon necropsy, we found that she had multiple organ abnormalities, which, in turn, created a life-ending cascade,” said Dr. Tom deMaar, the zoo’s senior veterinarian. “The cascade began with fibrosing heart disease, which led to renal failure.”
The zoo’s gorillas are closely monitored on a daily basis for any sign of illness, which includes changes in behavior, reluctance to eat or drink and altered interactions with their keepers and with each other.
Western lowland gorillas are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. In the wild, they are threatened by poaching, disease, and most of all, habitat loss and destruction.
The Gladys Porter Zoo is a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which sets a high standard for animal care at zoological institutions across the nation. The Zoo also participates in the Gorilla Species Survival Plan, which seeks to create a sustainable, genetically diverse population of gorillas in human care.
