Baby Jameela may have found her new mom!
A video posted by the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo shows a surrogate mother gorilla named Freddy, short for Fredrika, picking her up within seconds of seeing the baby in a nest in the gorilla exhibit.
“Freddy immediately went in and picked her up. It was the biggest sigh of relief," said Laura Klutts, associate animal curator at the zoo in Cleveland. “That was the first time Jameela was able to be picked up properly by a female gorilla.”
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“To see what that looks like in a successful way, it brought tears to my eyes,” said Angie Holmes, the primary gorilla keeper at the Fort Worth Zoo.
Jameela was born on Jan. 5 via a historic emergency C-section after her mother Sekani developed preeclampsia. Her mother, however, never bonded with her premature baby.
The Fort Worth Zoo made two other attempts at training females in its troop to be a surrogate mother. Neither gorilla picked up the baby.
The zoo made the decision to transfer Jameela to the Cleveland Metroparks zoo in hopes a proven surrogate there would bond with her.
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is a leader in gorilla research, care and management. It currently has seven gorillas in its troop. There's the silverback, four adult females, and a couple of infant gorillas.
Jameela was transferred via private plane last week with high hopes she would find her mother.
