London Zoo celebrates birth of critically endangered baby gorilla

Mother Mjukuu gave birth to the adorable infant on Wednesday morning
Sami Quadri18 January 2024

A baby gorilla from a critically endangered species has been welcomed as the latest resident at London Zoo.

Mother Mjukuu gave birth to the adorable infant at 9.34am on Wednesday after an eight-and-a-half month pregnancy. Zookeepers are yet to confirm the sex of the child.

London Zoo has hailed the birth of the western lowland gorilla as a cause for celebration given the species' critically endangered status in the wild.

Their population has plummeted by 60 per cent over the past 25 years due to illegal poaching and disease.

Western lowland gorilla birth
Mother Mjukuu cradles her newborn
PA

While doing their morning duties, the gorilla keepers at London Zoo noticed that Mjukuu was about to give birth. They decided to give her some room and watched over her using the CCTV cameras in the dens.

Just after having her baby in the privacy of the back dens, Mjukuu, now a mum for the second time, was seen lovingly holding her little one.

She even let the troop's young and curious gorillas, Alika and Gernot, take a peek at the new addition.

London Zoo’s Primates Section Manager Kathryn Sanders said: “We started our day as normal – we gave the gorillas their breakfast and began our cleaning routines. When we returned to their back dens, we could see Mjukuu was starting to stretch and squat – a sign that she was in labour.

Mother Mjukuu with her new baby
London Zoo

“After a very quick labour – just 17 minutes – Mjukuu was spotted on camera tenderly holding her newborn and demonstrating her wonderful mothering instincts – cleaning her infant and checking it over.”

Kathryn added: “To say we’re happy about this new arrival would be a huge understatement – we’ve all been walking around grinning from ear to ear.

“We’ll be giving mum and baby lots of time and space to get to know each other, and for the rest of the troop to get used to their new addition – they’re as excited as we are and can’t stop staring at the baby.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in