No Baby Boom for Gorilla Ivo

Medical examination confirmed – Ivo is impotent

  • [Translate to English:] Flachland-Gorilla Ivo aus dem Berliner Zoo  ist zeugungsunfähig

As the veterinary examination commissioned by Zoo Berlin confirmed at the end of June, the amount of female admirers noble Ivo (27) enjoys, sadly won't lead to any gorilla offspring. We had long since wondered why none of the female gorillas had gotten pregnant – despite the heightened advances by Ivo.


Now it's confirmed: The beautiful silverback doesn't seem able to produce any functional sperm – and this is down to genetics. The spermatological investigation also shows that he only had a low level and diverse amount of sperm. The reason for this is shrinking and cystically modified testicles. We can conclude from the test results that this is the reason why there is a lack of offspring in the enclosure.


The committee of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP) will decide whether a new home in another zoo is right for Ivo and Zoo Berlin gets a potent Gorilla in return or whether we can go without any new Gorilla babies for a little while.


Poaching, the progressive destruction of the gorilla habitat and diseases like Ebola alone have contributed to the dramatic decline in the population of this species by around 60% in the past 20 to 25 years. Gorillas have thus become a key species for endangered animals.


A total of five western lowland gorillas live in Zoo Berlin: Fatou (58), M`penzi (28), Ivo (27), Bibi (18) and Djambala (13).

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