Shauna Steigerwald

ssteigerwald@enquirer.com

At 17, Harambe, the gorilla shot and killed Saturday after a child fell into Gorilla World at Cincinnati Zoo, was relatively young: Gorillas can live 40 to 50 years in zoos.

The 450-pound silverback western lowland gorilla was born at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas, on May 27, 1999, and came to Cincinnati in September 2014.

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A post on the Gladys Porter Zoo's Facebook page from Sept. 18, 2014, bids farewell to the primate. It reads: "With a mixture of sad and happy feelings, we are preparing #Harambe, one of our #Silverback #WesternLowlandGorillas, for the journey to his new home. The #CincinnatiZoo and big, new adventures are waiting for you, big boy!"

A Cincinnati Zoo blog post from April 14, 2015, noted that Harambe had gotten too old to remain at Gladys Porter and had come to the Cincinnati Zoo to join a social group with females Chewie and Mara, who were both 19 at that time.

"He demonstrates intelligence and curiosity, using sticks and things to reach for items outside his grasp,” Ron Evans, curator of primates at the Cincinnati Zoo, said of Harambe in 2015.

Evans is part of the Species Survival Program management group for the species. That group manages the 360-odd gorillas in Association of Zoos and Aquariums facilities, with a goal of keeping the animals genetically diverse so that their populations are healthy and viable into the future. At 17, Harambe was not quite at breeding maturity, but the zoo had hoped to breed him in the future, director of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden Thane Maynard said Saturday.

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"It'll be a loss to the gene pool of lowland gorillas," Maynard said. "The loss of a breeding male is a big deal.

"Harambe was a good guy," he added.

His short time at the Cincinnati Zoo was commemorated by flowers left next to a gorilla statue Sunday.

"We are so sad that you had to kill one of your gorillas we love the gorillas," read the card, headed "With Deepest Sympathy" and written in a child's handwriting, on a bundle of carnations.

Harambe was one of 10 western lowland gorillas at the Cincinnati Zoo. They are a critically endangered species in the wild, with their numbers estimated at fewer than 175,000.

There are about 765 gorillas in zoos worldwide.