Oldest Gorilla, 55, In Captivity Dies
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 5th, 2008
Associated Press Writer Linda Stewart Ball is reporting today that the oldest gorilla in captivity, a 55-year-old female named Jenny, has died at the Dallas Zoo – her home for more than half a century.
Zoo officials decided to euthanize Jenny on Thursday night because of an inoperable tumor in her stomach. Jenny had stopped eating and drinking recently, and tests showed she was unlikely to recover, zoo spokesman Sean Greene said.
“The last couple of weeks we noticed that she hadn’t been feeling all that great,” Greene said. “It was a quality-of-life decision.”
The International Species Information System, which maintains records on animals at 700 institutions around the world, confirmed earlier this year that Jenny was the oldest gorilla in its database.
Jenny, a Western lowland gorilla, was born in the wild and was acquired by the zoo in 1957. She gave birth in 1965 to a female named Vicki, and officials aren’t sure why she didn’t conceive again. Vicki was sent to a Canadian zoo at age 5.
At the time of Jenny’s death she was one of five gorillas at the Dallas Zoo.
Gorillas in the wild normally live to age 30 or 35, but they can survive years longer in a zoo, with veterinary care and protection from predators. Still, of the roughly 360 gorillas in North American zoos, only four were over 50 as of this spring.
According to the International Species Information System, the oldest living gorilla is now Colo, a 51-year-old female at the Columbus Zoo who was the first gorilla born in captivity.
Just last month, another gorilla at the Dallas Zoo, 43-year-old Hercules, died after undergoing a medical procedure for spinal disease.
In 2004, Dallas police shot and killed a 13-year-old gorilla named Jabari at the zoo after it jumped over a wall, bit three people and snatched up a toddler by his teeth. The enclosure was remodeled and the city paid a fine to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
So sad to hear about Jenny’s death after one died earlier this year. Not good for Dallas zoo or the zoologic world. I love Gorillas and am so fascinated by them after studying them to learn about sasquatch activity. All ya gotta do is go here and you’ll see what I mean.
Can’t help but love these beautiful creatures.Thank you, Loren, for the heads up about the loss of our friend.
I am so sad they had to put her down, but I do understand the quality of life issue.