What kind of mother would abandon this cute baby?

[Gormy Cuss]

Zoo baby gorilla dumped by mom is doing fine

Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, February 12, 2009
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(02-12) 15:27 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- With 1,000 free bananas and a high-tech surveillance camera, the San Francisco Zoo formally introduced its 2-month-old gorilla Thursday to his adoring fellow primates, the human kind.

An infant male gorilla, abandoned soon after birth by his...A baby male gorilla sits with his toys at the San Francis...A baby male gorilla holds on to keeper Rachel Simpson at ... View More Images

The baby gorilla turned out to be something that grown gorillas aren't, which is cute.

"Awwww," said just about everybody, when the small and wrinkly western lowland gorilla made his live debut on a special video monitor installed alongside the gorilla house.

The gorilla, born Dec. 8, has been a nonstop challenge to his keepers, largely because his mother, Monifa, decided motherhood was a big nuisance and abandoned the infant shortly after giving birth.

Zookeepers began raising the gorilla themselves, while keeping the baby only a few feet away from the rest of the gorilla troop on the other side of the fence inside the gorilla house.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/12/BAU415T0QV.DTL

[leeroysphitz]

1. baby Urko!!!

[carlyhippy]

2. ooh he's so cute!

Carly

[Roon]

3. WANT!!

[ThomCat]

4. He's adorable!

I hope they're able to socialize him well with the other apes.

He's certainly a quiet baby, but I guess in the wild a baby would have to be, so maybe that's normal.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. Kicking cuz teh baby is so adorable.

[Bucky]

6. Mental illness occurs in all primates. I'm sure it's post partum depression.

Maybe living her whole life behind bars has affected the mom's mental health.

(Plus, look at that baby--it's a goddamn gorilla)

Anyway, the reporter is a total sexist for putting the blame on the mom and not even mentioning where deadbeat dad is in all this.

[Shell Beau]

7. He can come stay at my house!!

He is sooo cute.

[MajorChode]

8. Pickles?

[marzipanni]

9. I heard something cute about Koko the gorilla who learned sign language-

She was a great fan of the Mr. Roger's Neighborhood show, and he came to visit her. She gave him a big hug, then tried to take his shoes off!
This video doesn't show the shoe part, but does show the hugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5RrORtDZuQ

[Arugula Latte]

10. Maybe the octuplet mom wants him.

Hey, what's one more baby primate? And this one is especially cute.

[LisaL]

12. I think that octomom has more than enough on her hands as it is.

:rofl:

[nickgutierrez]

11. Yeah, he's cute now.

Just wait until he gets older - he would have eaten Mama Gorilla out of house and home. Do you know how big those damned things get?