Tumani, a Gorilla Mom-to-Be at New Orleans's Audubon Zoo, Has an Online Gift Registry

What do you get the gorilla who has everything? In the case of Tumani, a female western lowland gorilla living at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, Louisiana, you should be thinking about baby necessities. The zoo, which recently reopened after being closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, has created a baby shower registry for Tumani, who is expecting her first child any day now.

The registry is accepting donations for the zoo to purchase feeders, toys, and a massive swing. There are also items you might find at a more conventional baby shower, like blankets, a sandbox, and building blocks. Donations will also be used to buy food.

Tumani’s infant will be the first gorilla born in the zoo in 24 years. The 13-year-old Tumani came to the Audubon Zoo from the Cheyenne Mountain Park Zoo in Colorado in 2017. Her mate, a 26-year-old silverback named Okpara, arrived that same year from the Franklin Park Zoo in Massachusetts. The two were set up, as it were, under the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan. Western lowland gorillas are a critically endangered species who have seen an 80 percent reduction in their population owing to illegal hunting, disease, habitat loss, and poaching.