Like most 2-year-olds, Glenda runs, claps her hands and rides piggyback on her mother. Unlike most 2-year-olds, she somersaults with the ease of a gymnast, clambers up and down rock walls and loves green veggies.
Ficus leaves were her morning snack of choice on Wednesday as she explored her new environs at the Los Angeles Zoo and briefly played peek-a-boo at the edge of a wall with a small gaggle of onlookers.
She'll undoubtedly have many more visitors as the Los Angeles Zoo opens its new Campo Gorilla Reserve today. After a 4 1/2 -year absence, Western lowland gorillas are back, in a newly constructed exhibit the zoo prefers to call a habitat.
It is part of the continuing overhaul of the middle area of the zoo, which will include an exhibit for long-awaited golden monkeys from China and the controversial elephant habitat now under construction.
With a price tag -- $19 million -- to rival a Beverly Hills mansion, it appears to have all the amenities that a captive gorilla herbivore could want: one-third of an acre of grassy rolling hills, rock ledges to climb and an all-you-can-eat buffet of shrubbery and pomegranate trees. A waterfall cascades into a stream, and little alcoves offer refuge from the madding crowd of spectators.
The top perimeter of the exhibit, dauntingly high, is discreetly wired with a low-voltage electrical current to prevent escapes.
The residents were shipped out of town in 2003, with plans calling for the new habitat to be completed in 2004. But fundraising problems caused delays, which contributed to a higher price tag, in part because of a surge in construction costs across the region.
The gorilla exhibit was paid for with funds from a 1998 bond issue, Proposition CC, as well as city funds and money raised by the nonprofit Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn.
The 1 1/2 -acre exhibit's winding pathway is separated from the rest of the zoo by lush trees and shrubs -- a buffer, staffers hope, from the construction noise and squealing children often encountered on the zoo's main walkways.
"For the people, it's a whole immersion experience," said Jennie McNary, one of the zoo's curators of mammals. "And we hope it gives people a respect for the gorillas."
Architect M. Mario Campos of Jones & Jones Architects in Seattle led the design effort.
