This zookeeper plays father to rejected baby gorilla

Hanover / DPA

Last night, Yanga slept for three hours at a stretch. As far as Klaus Meyer is concerned, this is cause for celebration. Normally, she wakes every hour during the night and wants to be entertained with hugs and tickles.
Meyer is not a new dad, but a keeper at Germany’s Hanover Zoo, and he currently has a demanding full-time job as a foster parent. He and three colleagues take care of Yanga the baby gorilla around the clock.
“The baby always has to be carried against the body,” Meyer explains. That’s how the gorilla mother does it, he says. Even while the keeper is sleeping, Yanga lies on his belly.
“The little one only has to turn over, and I’m awake straight away,” he says. When he lays Yanga down for a moment to change her diaper, she starts crying immediately. So she always gets tickled after the diaper change.
“She laughs then – it’s a proper chuckle, and this is important, as the diaper change should be regarded positively,” Meyer explains.
The three-and-a-half-week-old baby gorilla gets a bottle once every two to three hours.
Yanga’s mother Zazie rejected her baby. The zoo is now looking for a suitable gorilla foster mother through a European conservation breeding programme.
Currently, the keepers regularly sit by the gorilla enclosure with the baby, separated by bars. They want the group to see, smell and hear the little one, and for Yanga to be near to her family too.
The baby gorilla is given manufactured baby formula.
“From the fourth or fifth month they also get mashed up bananas and pieces of apple,” explains vet Viktor Molnar.
Of course, the infant doesn’t get the immunity that is normally gained from the mother’s milk, he says. For this reason, the zoo will keep an especially close eye on the baby, although she shouldn’t grow up in a sterile environment, he says.
“There’s a risk with all hand-reared young.” Only past three months in age is the immune system stronger, the vet says.
“This all looks cute, but it’s a strenuous job,” Meyer stresses.
He has a son and is a grandfather – but raising your own child is easier, he says. Of course, he has extremely paternal feelings for the baby gorilla – the attachment keeps getting stronger, he says.
“During the diaper change, Yanga already looks at you for a really long time,” Meyer says.
And gradually, she is starting to cling and really hold on, he continues. But the goal is to integrate the young animal into a gorilla group, not with humans, he says – the sooner the better.
“There are 62 gorilla facilities in Europe, we hope to find a suitable female gorilla there,” says zoological director Klaus Brunsing. Until then, Klaus Meyer will have several sleepless nights, although as he says:
“The little one has absolute priority – everything else is not important now.”