The south coast received its newest retiree, with a 36-year-old silverback gorilla moving into his new home at Mogo Zoo on Tuesday.
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Kibabu, a 210-kilogram gorilla is having a sea change after 17 years living at Sydney's Taronga Zoo and fathering 14 offspring as part of a global program to help safeguard his critically endangered species from extinction. Taronga Zoo imported a new male from France, paving the way for Kibabu to retire to the coast with some of his family members.
![The newest member of Mogo Zoo's primate family 36-year-old silverback gorilla Kibabu. The newest member of Mogo Zoo's primate family 36-year-old silverback gorilla Kibabu.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/63dd0e1d-e140-40a2-906f-e62894b4ef32.jpg/r0_0_729_410_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
With him at Mogo are two of his infants, five-year-old boy Mahali and two-and-a-half-year-old Kipenzi, and their mothers, 41-year-old Mouila and 34-year-old Kriba.
"Kibabu is definitely here forever for retirement, the girls will be here hopefully as long as possible as well," Mogo zoo's general manager John Appleby said.
While he's expected to live another 10 to 15 years, the gorilla's breeding days are behind him.
"Now is his time to sit back and take it easy - the girls have got implants and they'll still do the wild thing as they do, but there won't be any outcomes," Mr Appleby said.
The transport of the family took a lot of planning; they made the move in fortified transport crates, as part of a convoy that was said to resemble a presidential motorcade.
"It's an amazing aura that surrounds Kibabu … it [was] like a statesman cavalcade, he's a bit like the president of the gorilla world."
After spending their first evening in their night enclosure, Kibabu emerged on Wednesday morning to scope out his new surrounds.
"It was the cutest thing you've ever seen - little babies poking him in the back saying 'come on dad can we go outside?' He looked at them [to say] 'no, not 'til I say'.