The Toronto Zoo says Charles, a 52-year-old silverback gorilla who had shown signs of deteriorating health recently, passed away on Oct. 29.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
For a while this week, Charles seemed to be rallying.
The 430-pound western lowland gorilla had not been faring well. He was 52 years old, long past the usual lifespan of his species in the wild. After many years as the patriarch of the gorillas in the Toronto Zoo, his time seemed to be running out.
He seemed unusually tired and listless. He was breathing harder and faster than was normal. Veterinarians determined that his heart was failing. They gave him cardiac drugs. On Tuesday morning, he was more like his old self. He sat up and ate. He drank cup after cup of herbal tea. His keepers began to hope.
Charles was a legendary figure at the Zoo. He came to the sprawling sanctuary in Toronto’s Rouge River watershed in 1974, when it was only a few weeks old. He himself was just two – an orphan far from his birthplace in equatorial Africa.
Young Charles was playful and full of life. He loved beating his chest, leaping into the pool to make a splash or showering himself with a hose. He waited patiently for school groups to arrive, then charged the glass wall of his enclosure, sending the startled kids scattering.
As the years passed he grew into a powerful silverback. The father of 11 offspring, Charles was a strong leader, usually gentle but always ready to use his massive strength to maintain order. One primatologist remembers seeing him rush, roaring, at two juvenile males who were roughhousing too close to a new female baby, then going back to his usual spot as if nothing had happened. He hated tall men, viewing them as potential rivals. But he was afraid of toads.
He became one of the Zoo’s biggest attractions. Generations of visitors came to see him, watching fascinated as he roamed around his living space on his knuckles or munched vegetables from a giant bowl. This summer the zoo even erected a statue of him, such was his fame.
By then, though, age was catching up on Charles. His devoted keepers put handrails on his climbing platforms to help him with his faltering balance and extra shavings in his sleeping nook so he could sleep through his arthritis pain. They steamed his root vegetables to make them easier to chew. They put painkillers and vitamins in his breakfast porridge, with honeyed tea to help it go down. To accommodate his big belly and stiff hips, they modified the ultrasound scanner they used to check his heart.
Many people will argue that penning up a majestic animal such as Charles is a crime and that zoos have no place in the modern world. But today’s zoos do much more than display imprisoned beasts for the entertainment of a gawking public.
They study animal health and behaviour, helping us understand the diets, reproductive patterns and social structures of the world’s creatures. They nurture and breed endangered species. Because of poaching and disease, the population of western lowland gorillas has fallen by more than 60 per cent over the past quarter century. With his quiet stardom, Charles contributed mightily to preserving his kind.
Above all, they teach. Visitors learn about the marvels of the animal kingdom, in all its dazzling variety. Many come away wanting to protect what is left of that threatened dominion. Some donate to animal conservation or become conservationists themselves.
Visiting the zoo reminds us that, despite our mastery of the planet, we are animals, too. Though it’s a mistake to say any wild thing is “just like us,” no one could observe the gorillas of the Toronto zoo during Charles’s reign without feeling a sense of kinship. Here was a mother cradling her wide-eyed baby, there a pack of overexcited youngsters racing madly about, there again a young-buck male testing his strength. At the centre of it all, year after year, was Charles.
His rally on Tuesday was brief. After the vigour of the morning, he worsened sharply that afternoon. His breathing grew laboured again. Four of his keepers gathered around, giving him soothing scratches through the side of his enclosure. After a time, Charles retreated a few feet, laid down and died.