Utilization of surrogates to integrate hand-reared infant gorillas into an age/sex diversified group of conspecifics

Abstract

Mother-rearing for captive gorillas is the optimum social environment for an infant. When this is not feasible, it is important to integrate hand-reared infants as early as possible into age/sex diversified groups of conspecifics. To prepare infants in this study for introduction, the interactions of a successful gorilla mother/infant dyad were incorporated into the nursery protocol for hand-reared infants. By utilizing female gorillas over the age of 25 as surrogates, hand-reared gorilla infants were introduced into an established age/sex diversified group. The utilization of older female gorillas as surrogates may facilitate the integration of hand-reared infants and increase their potential for social success in captive populations. This report is a chronological account of the introduction process used to integrate a hand-reared male infant gorilla into an established group of conspecifics (3.3). The report includes notes on how the process was used and modified to introduce three other nursery-reared infant gorillas into the same group of conspecifics. Ape-House and Nursery personnel monitored all phases of the introduction process.