By The Way...

Here's a story to make you sad: Gorillas hold 'wake' for group's leader:

After Babs the gorilla died at age 30, keepers at Brookfield Zoo decided to allow surviving gorillas to mourn the most influential female in their social family.

One by one Tuesday, the gorillas filed into the Tropic World building where Babs' body lay, arms outstretched. Curator Melinda Pruett Jones called it a "gorilla wake."

This is not entirely surprising behavior, of course. Anyone who has more than one pet at a time knows that the other animals know when another of them has died or is missing, and will frequent be bereft from the loss. The fact is that such behavior isn't "almost human" -- it just shows what we have in common with the rest of the animal kingdom.

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• #1 Comment from justcherie 
  12/9/04 5:57 AM | Permalink

  I heard this on the radio yesterday (NPR I think).  I'm glad they gave the other gorillas a chance to say good-bye!  And although they touched on the subject of the head male staying away from her body in the article, the radio story mentioned that he had been afraid to go near her in life and in death.  She sounds like a woman to reckon with!  :)