Oldest Gorilla in Captivity Dies at Age 55
The oldest gorilla living in captivity, Jenny, died late Thursday night at age 55. She lived in Dallas Zoo for over half a century.
Jenny could have lived longer in theory, but zoo officials decided to euthanize her ‘because of an inoperable tumor in her stomach. Jenny had stopped eating and drinking recently, and tests showed she was unlikely to recover, spokesman Sean Greene said.’
Her keepers described Jenny as ‘very sweet though a little bossy.’
“If she doesn’t want to go out on a certain day, she doesn’t,” Todd Bowsher, curator of the zoo’s Wilds of Africa exhibit, said in May, when the zoo held a birthday bash to celebrate Jenny’s longevity. “But she really likes people.”
Jenny was the oldest gorilla living in captivity in the world. She was born in the wild, but brought to Dallas Zoo in 1957. Eight years later she gave birth to a daughter, Vicki. Vicki was transferred to a zoo in Canada when she was five years old.
Although gorillas often grow older in captivity than they do in the wild (where they only live for 30 to 35 years), Jenny was of an exceptionally old age. Of the 360 gorillas in North American zoos, only four are 50 years or older.
