This story has been updated.
With construction set to start in the coming months on the largest exhibit the San Antonio Zoo has ever built, the zoo now has a count for the number of gorillas that will be housed in its newest habitat.
Two sets of gorillas are expected for the zoo’s planned new habitat, said Tim Morrow, president and CEO of the San Antonio Zoo.
A family of four gorillas — a silverback male and three females — and four teenage males will be selected for San Antonio by the species survival planning group of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).
Local zoo officials have been working with the organization, which manages the gorilla population and their movement throughout zoos, to design the new habitat called Congo Falls in San Antonio. The city’s Historic and Design Review Commission will consider architectural designs for the new space at the historic zoo on Wednesday.
Morrow said it is rare for any zoo to open with eight gorillas at once. “I think they [AZA] also recognize how much work has gone into this habitat, how amazing this habitat is going to be for the gorillas,” Morrow said.
The troop of apes will arrive in 2025, greeted by a team of zookeepers that include Charles Ritzler, director of animal wellbeing at the San Antonio Zoo, who began his career working with large apes at other zoos.
At a zoo in Buffalo, Ritzler easily developed relationships with the gorillas in his care, which he said knew their names. He often interacted with the animals, especially during feedings, his favorite activity of the day.
“They’re incredibly intelligent, but there’s a respect that sort of goes both ways in the relationship,” he said.
The new habitat is being designed to blur the lines between guest and gorilla, Morrow said, begging the question: Who’s watching who?
“It will not be the habitat of yesteryear where you’re kind of just standing in one spot looking at the habitats,” he said. “This is very immersive for the guests and gorillas.”
Designed by St. Louis-based architect, PGAV Destinations, Congo Falls is planned as a two-acre exhibit in the Africa section of the zoo, nestled along the quarry walls. It will feature multiple areas for the gorillas to roam and a browsing garden for the animals to explore that will be replanted daily.
Zoo visitors will have several vantage points to view the animals, and the gorillas can climb a tower for a look into the Ralston Center, a planned new event building, and also get a view of the San Antonio skyline.
“The top priority is the well-being and enrichment for gorillas and to put them in comfortable spaces for their social groups,” Morrow said. “A big focus is on creating new enrichment opportunities … because they are very, very smart and they need stimulation.”
He added that the new habitat also is being designed to meet the standards set by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Gorillas were first introduced to the San Antonio Zoo in the 1950s.
The last gorilla residing there, Mopie, was moved to the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington, D.C., in 1990. The gorilla’s habitat at the front of the zoo later became a home for lemurs and a sky trail for the long-tailed prosimians.
But visitors have missed seeing gorillas, the world’s largest living primates, at the zoo, Morrow said.
“Almost every day as we walk the zoo, guests want to know where the gorillas are,” he said. “We have an absence of the great apes. We don’t have chimps. We don’t have orangutans. We don’t have gorillas. So we knew that that was something we needed to bring back to this community.”
Expecting their arrival to bring a greater number of visitors, zoo officials recently built and unveiled a new $13 million entrance to replace the original at the 1929 zoo.
A giant gorilla topiary presided over the ribbon-cutting in December and now greets visitors entering the wrought-iron gates and into the H-E-B Plaza.
Funding for the nonprofit zoo to build the gorilla habitat, estimated by Morrow at $30 million, will come from a contribution to the zoo’s capital campaign to raise a total of $67 million for the new zoo entrance, gorilla habitat, the event enter and related infrastructure work.
The Ralston Family Foundation donated $10 million toward the project and the Kowalski family contributed $1 million for a courtyard. In December, the zoo also announced a gift of $5 million from the Mays Family Foundation.
Around the world, about 900 gorillas are living in zoos or in care, including troops at the Houston and Dallas zoos. Gorillas are a crucially endangered species, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Poaching and disease have reduced their numbers by more than 60% over the last 20 to 25 years.
“If you look at the plight of gorillas or any of these big species, or almost any species anymore, what we do as an educational touchpoint is immeasurable,” Morrow said.
San Antonio’s zookeepers expect to have gorillas in their care for a long time and are already anticipating the first gorilla birth at the zoo. “Our goal is to have 100 years of sustainable population going forward,” Morrow said.
This story has been updated to correct that PGAV Destinations is based in St. Louis.
