[Kitombe is a real Silverback, not one of those — like you and me– fake ones who parade around in The Jungle, eating bananas, and comparing notes on their harems. I found Kitombe’s story sweetly sad and quite moving. SB SM]
Kitombe, late Franklin Park Zoo gorilla, remembered as ‘gentle giant’ with ‘his own little attitude’
Staff made the decision to euthanize the 38-year-old gorilla on Thursday after chronic health problems
By Camilo Fonseca and Sabrina Lam Boston Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, Updated December 6, 2024,
Guests braving the chilly, overcast weather Friday at the Franklin Park Zoo were greeted with a sobering message scrawled in big red letters at the ticket booth: “RIP to Kitombe the Gorilla.”
Kitombe, who roamed the enclosures of the zoo for over 25 years, died Thursday after veterinarians euthanized the 38-year-old gorilla, following a period of rapidly declining health, officials said.
“Frankly, it really was time for him,” said John Linehan, president of Zoo New England, in a Friday interview. “I think sometimes we can show the animals more compassion than we can legally show people. And I think that was where we were at with him.”
Kitombe, affectionately known as Kit, was born at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans on Sept. 20, 1986, according to the nonprofit group Gorilla SSP. He lived there for12 years before being transferred to Franklin Park in 1998.
His early years at the Dorchester zoo were trying, both for himself and staff.
When Kit was first introduced to the troop — at the time, two adult females and two juvenile males — he aggressively asserted his dominance. Though he mated with Kiki, the younger female, he still attackedthe others. Zoo staff temporarily removed him from the exhibit after only 11 months, they wrote in an industry newsletter.
He periodically interacted with Kiki during this time and fathered two offspring, but he was deemed too rambunctious and immature to live with them. Zoo staff were also concerned about his confrontations with Little Joe, one of the younger male gorillas who famously escaped from the zoo in September 2003.
Kit was not directly involved in that incident. But one zoo volunteer attributed the fragile situation at the gorilla exhibit at the time to “puberty and testosterone.” Another staff member told the Globe that it was like “having a 16-year old son in charge of the family. It’s out of control.”
Normally, a gorilla of Kit’s age would have had an older adult male to “keep him in line,” Linehan said, but Franklin Park had relocated its eldest silverback.
Officials thought about moving Kit to another zoo, but decided against it. Eventually, he matured and was adored as the zoo’s “gentle giant,” Linehan said.
“Back when we were having those troubles with them, everybody wanted to give up on him,” Linehan said. “I’m so happy we didn’t.”
He and Kiki eventually produced three more offspring, most recently in 2020. Kambiri, Aziza, and 4-year-old Pablo still reside at Franklin Park.
“I remember one day just he’s laying there on the ground, and his daughter is, one by one, pulling all his fingers down, and he’s just loving it,” Linehan said. “I have another whole series of pictures where Aziza, his second youngest, is teasing him and throwing hay on him, and he’s laughing. She’s acting like a monster to scare him.”
Hayley Murphy, a former chief veterinarian at Franklin Park, said that her fondest memories of Kit were watching him grow in fatherhood.
“He came in really full of vim and vigor and, as a young male, really full of himself,” said Murphy, now the executive director of the Detroit Zoological Society. “As he learned how to be a mature male, the female gorillas kind of helped him figure that out — and put him in his place when he acted out.”
As he aged, Kit developed health problems. In June, he had a bad cough, but an exam done under anesthesia yielded no obvious answers, officials said.
His symptoms worsened in recent weeks. Kit also seemed more tired and experienced tremors. After Thursday’s exam yielded poor results, staff decided not to wake him from his anesthesia.
The other gorillas, who mourn in a similar way to humans, were allowed to see Kit one last time, rather than having him just “disappear” from the exhibit, Linehan said.
In the Tropical Forest exhibit on Friday, children laughed and played with the gorillas on the other side of the glass, as longtime zoo volunteers quietly watched, their hearts heavy.
Alex Walter, visiting the zoo with her family from Maine, said she frequents local animal rehabilitation centers
”It’s sad that he’s passed, but you know that he was cared for correctly and was happy,” Walter said. “I would like to think that [Kitombe] lived a good life while he was here.”
Mindy Kalayjian, 52, of Weymouth, recalled visiting the gorilla exhibit with her children over the years.
“He had his own little attitude,” she said of Kit. “Whether it was taking poop and smearing it on the glass — kids love poop, right? Or he’d see you coming, and he’d turn around and put himself in the corner and get these, like, pouty shrugging shoulders, like a kid.”
Kalayjian said her kids — now 27 and 32 — especially loved Kit’s “thinking” face, which they thought resembled their grandfather.
“It was really sweet over the years to watch him grow from being a teenager, and then to watch how he cared for all the younger gorillas.”
🙁 R. I. P. Kit