Italian
The Hanna-Barbera cartoon that was all the rage in the 1960s is just a pretext to tell this very tender story.
It happened at the Fasano Zoosafari: a baby gorilla has been born—and take note, it’s the first in Italy in 50 years. Mama Tamani holds the newborn close, as if to shield it from all the attention. Only a few days old, the little one has already become a celebrity. The veterinarians have treated the new mother and her baby with care and gentleness, which is why they still don’t know whether it’s a male or a female.
One thing is certain: the family has grown, and dad Nasibu along with siblings Thabo and Tonka can cuddle the new arrival in the most natural way. The gorilla group at Fasano Zoosafari is part of a European program dedicated to the reproduction and management of endangered species. The event stirs both excitement and affection: after so many years, a gorilla birth in Italy represents life, but also “a beacon of hope on the path toward conservation and protection of the species,” as the Zoosafari itself wrote in a social media post.
Let’s enjoy the moment, even if the question of genetic safeguarding in exchange for the loss of freedom remains open—though modern zoos today continue to be places attentive to conservation and research, with carefully designed spaces close to their magnificent guests, even if they can never truly reproduce a natural habitat.
But today, let us repeat, we celebrate a birth.
Photo Credit: @zoosafarifasano / Instagram
Zero Biscuit by Mauro Lama
