Nora, a western lowland gorilla born on November 4, 2013, is growing up fast. She is learning to climb and her mother Koola is slowly relaxing her guard by allowing Nora’s half-sister Kamba to carry her around the exhibit! She is also starting to show an interest in being near her silverback dad JoJo. Nora has approached JoJo slowly and JoJo sits or lays still. Keepers have seen Nora briefly touch JoJo and then scoot back to Koola. Hopefully we’ll see them play in the near future!

You can see Nora and the rest of the gorilla family in Tropic World: Africa. You can also help in caring for her through our Share the Care program.

In the wild, western lowland gorillas  are critically endangered especially due to the spread of ebola virus outbreaks, and expanded road access into remote forest blocks allowing increased poaching for bushmeat.  Longer term threats include habitat destruction due to commercial logging and agricultural expansion, and eventually forest fire in response to drier forests in a warming world.