The little bush child was happy to play in Bobo’s arms.”
Every morning at an ape sanctuary in Africa, keepers check on all the residents—and there are a lot of them.
Due to habitat pressure and poaching threats, Ape Action Africa‘s Mefou Primate Sanctuary cares for over 300 rescued animals.
Earlier this month, when gorilla keepers went to check on Bobo’s group, they noticed something unusual.
Bobo, a western lowland gorilla, arrived back at the sanctuary in 1994 as a small and weak 2-year-old cub, after his mother was killed by poachers. Two decades later, he is a strong, massive silverback gorilla, the leader of his group at a sanctuary in Cameroon.
But even though Bobo is the dominant male of his group, he is known as a gentle giant. And Bobo’s gentleness was never more evident than when the caretaker found Bobo nursing a small wild bush baby he had discovered in the forest.
Bobo, our silverback gorilla, made an amazing new friend this week – a wild bush baby!” wrote AppAction Africa on Facebook.” The keepers found her petting the young primate during a morning check-up, and were amazed to see her handling it with such care.
According to AppAction Africa spokeswoman Alyssa O’Sullivan, the bush cub may have been living inside a gorilla enclosure. “The bush baby showed no fear of the bobo – circling its body and spending time roaming around in an open grassy area, before choosing to return to the bobo,” she told The Dodo.
Soon, the other gorillas became curious about Bobo’s little new friend.
Bobo was fair: he let his gorilla friends get close enough to take a look, even if he wouldn’t let them catch the bush baby himself.
Bobo’s group-mates were desperately curious, particularly his favorite female Avishag, but he kept them all at a distance, making sure no one disturbed his new friend. One, and even rarer, to witness this kind of interaction. The bush baby, happy to play in Bobo’s arms, went off to explore nearby grass before returning to Babu’s arms.
After about two hours, Bobo had finished playing with his new friend, and he knew where to take the bush baby.
When the game ended, Bobo deliberately walked on two legs to get his friend safely back into the trees, the sanctuary wrote.
H/T:TheDodo
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