Features / Interviews
Bringing up baby
Sarah Gedman looks absolutely shattered. “I’m a first-time mum,” she says, “so it’s been really good but really challenging – you can probably tell from the bags under my eyes!”
She is one of a team of three zoo-keepers who are hand-rearing the baby gorilla born at Bristol Zoo.
The gorilla’s birth made headlines across the world when a gynecologist from St Michael’s was brought in to perform an “incredibly rare” emergency C-section on mum Kera, who was suffering from life-threatening pre-eclampsia.
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After the euphoria of the birth, the reality of caring for a tiny gorilla baby has set in and Sarah and the team are on call 24/7.
“A gorilla mum wouldn’t put her down in a cot in between feeds – she carries it all the time and so we have to be gorilla mum,” says Sarah.
“We are feeding her on demand…She roots around when she wants a feed and we feed her every two hours.”
Working in shifts the team even take the baby gorilla home with them at night which will continue until “she gets more boisterous”.
Zoo keeper Sarah Gedman is one the three gorilla mums
However, it’s not just the feeding and changing which the team are focusing on.
“We have to be with her and teach her to be a gorilla,” says Sarah.
Part of that included communicating with the baby – and Sarah is a dab hand at talking to gorillas (listen to her speak gorilla below).
“You have to be quite strict with yourself as well. It’s very easy to anthropomorphise it because she looks like a human baby but she isn’t. You have to give her the constant contact and security but also giving her the the gorilla vocalisations and comfort techniques.”
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Kera is still gradually recovering from the operation but the team is confident that the baby will be returned to the group.
However, until then they have a lot of long nights ahead.
“It’s trying to remember she isn’t yours and you have to given her back and keep a bit of professionalism but we are all smitten with her,” says Sarah.
More on the birth of the baby gorilla