The real news has been one depressing thing after another with real world implications, such that I completely stopped watching nightly newscasts. I still read news, but I'm more selective about my sources and just want to know what has happened, not talking heads discussing it endlessly. And as you know if you come to this page a lot, or know me through socials or IRL, that I spend most of my days at the San Diego Zoo. And this summer, I stepped it up and would zip to Seaworld on basically every possible night it was open later than the Zoo, which was most of the summer since the zoo changed their summer to close at 8pm. Anyway, the point here is that I spend A LOT of time with animals.
That's why this week has been so. fucking. hard. Last week, I found out, pretty much on the same day that Polar Bear Talluk and Giraffe Nicky from the Zoo had died, and that Basa the Walrus from Seaworld had died. To be fair, I never spent a lot of time with Talluk, because he loved his air conditioned bedroom, but who doesn't have an affinity for the polar bears and their origin story at the Zoo? But Nicky was someone that I spent many hours with over the years. Especially when Mawe was born and I witnessed her first steps...I would hang out by them for hours at a time. I learned how to tell the giraffes apart in person, though it's much more challenging in my photos, I concede. And I always loved watching their care specialist interact with them. He'd whistle and wave his arm, and they'd all come running to him like puppies, and they'd wait patiently on one side of the habitat doors while he filled their feeders with food and browse, until he remotely opened them and they would feast.
And same for Seaworld. I've often shared how I fell in love with a walrus named Mitik, who had been raised by humans and would play with me at the glass and was my sole reason for buying an annual pass. In loving him, I got to often spend time with the rest of the walruses - Chouchou, Dozer, and Basilla. When he passed very young of medical issues, I was heartbroken, but so grateful that he had a life at all instead of dying as an abandoned infant. Eventually Seaworld sent Chouchou to Seaworld Orlando, and so just the two adults remained...Dozer and Basilla. Admittedly, the belugas became my new obsession, because I'd get to the park so late that usually the walruses had already retreated to their bedroom pools, but I still visited them often and attempted to play with them at the glass like I had with Mitik, though they would mostly just swim over for a hot sec that could've been acknowledgement or coincidence.
All three were known to be senior animals, and just like losing my Ficus earlier this year, you always kinda know in the back of your mind that these aging animals aren't going to live forever, though it is amazing that they all far exceeded typical life expectancy for their respective species, a testament to the incredible compassion and care they receive from their care teams.
But Monday of this week came, and I was not ready for the news that Maka, the eldest of the resident bachelor brother gorillas had died that morning. It was known that he'd had at least one seizure, because it was seen on surveillance camera, but it wasn't known just how many he'd had. Gorillas are also known for heart disease and with Maka's chromosomal abnormalities, his health was always monitored extra close. But the news was and is still so devastating. If I tried to calculate the amount of time I've spent with the gorillas over the past several years--since COVID, really, well, let's just say it's a lot. It wasn't the responsibility of the gorillas to teach me anything about life, and death, but they did. When we were going through it with my dad and having to drive to Chula Vista every night to help move him into bed, I was spending all day with the gorillas. Sure, I'd be working on my phone or laptop for the duration, but I was still there. And when I got the call that my dad had died, I was with the gorillas. I watched the little brother, Denny, transition from his family group with his mom and dad to the bachelor group, with his three older half-brothers, Ekuba, Mandazzi, and Maka.
Maka was known to be so even keeled and so mellow that he was Denny's first introduction, and Maka protected him fiercely, even though he was completely outsized by the two middle brothers. Watching them test their boundaries and learn to live together was a beautiful, albeit sometimes stressful, thing to witness. On one particular day, Maka took a tooth or a finger nail to his cheek and was bleeding profusely. No volunteers were around because they had a volunteer appreciation brunch, so I called security to have them alert the care specialists of what happened. They called in all the boys, and it turned out they had to go into emergency surgery to give Maka subcutaneous stitches, that they could see an artery exposed from the depth of the gash. That day, I was bonded to Maka forever.
Unlike his brothers, however, Maka just didn't really give a shit about the humans, which made it all the more special if he acknowledged you at all. He would do this cute little posture to run from one side of the habitat to the other, and Denny would follow with one hand on his shoulder, like watching a football offense trying to run the ball, and if Maka stopped at you with his butt to you on the glass, you knew that it was because he felt safe with you.
After Mandazzi left to start a family of his own at Sedgwick County Zoo, the dynamic was thrown off once again. Whereas Ekuba was left to take on the alpha qualities, being the biggest of the group, Maka was the wisest and sweetest and always trying to be the peacemaker, letting Denny know when he pushed too hard on their social boundaries. Recently Paul Donn and Jessica were moved to Safari Park, so Paul Donn can take over as silverback of the family troop up there, and it once again threw everything off, because now the three boys were to be outside all day, whereas before they'd swap half the day with the parents. Again, this new dynamic was confusing, in the way humans hate daylight saving time, or just want to be home when sometimes we don't have a choice in the matter, or you wake up on a Monday and dread going to work, primates do not like change. But they finally seemed like they were coming along, finding that they could take their naps by the waterfall or hang out in the back, or be near the humans only when they wanted to be. It actually felt like Maka had grown to like it, actually sitting at the glass facing the humans instead of with his back to it. Just about a week ago, I was standing in the little corner I love, working on my phone, and I look up and he's standing facing me eye to eye and I couldn't believe I wasn't just getting his butt smooshed at me! He was often overshadowed by his brothers antics or their size, but his soul was so sweet. It is amazing how much you can know and love an animal, to feel such intimacy in moments and deep communication, even through glass.
It's been like a wake around the gorillas this week. All my zoo friends have been by to commiserate and cry and share pictures and to be present for Denny and Ekuba, the remaining two gorillas, who are just trying to figure out what the hell is going on as they move into a new relationship with each other, without Maka. It's hard and painful to watch. It's devastating to wonder what they understand and what they don't. But we've seen them adapt. They certainly continue to be a lesson for me in that respect. They were comfort when I've lost family, and when we lost Ficus. I hope in some small way, we can be that for them.
