Columbus Zoo’s beloved gorilla, Lulu, dies

By Kathy Lynn Gray

Columbus Dispatch

Visitors loved to watch her wrestle, stick out her tongue and thump her chest to draw their attention.

No wonder hundreds publicly mourned yesterday when they learned that Lulu the gorilla passed away Monday at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.

Their comments filled the zoo’s Facebook page as word spread that the 46-year-old western lowland gorilla breathed her last while awaiting an MRI to determine what caused seizures that started Saturday.

“I loved to watch her play with the kids, and sometimes with us through the glass,” wrote Sue Allison Roberts. “She had this funny little ‘Lulu dance’ that was a series of hand and arm gestures.”

Others remembered meeting Lulu when she came to Columbus in 1984, then introducing her to their own children during visits to the zoo.

She was a favorite of zookeepers and visitors alike, said Dale Schmidt, the zoo’s president. Visitors easily recognized her by her pink tongue, which she was perpetually sticking out.

Zoo Vice President Dusty Lombardi first thought Lulu was “one tough lady, but it wasn’t long before she showed us her sweet, maternal side.”

Lulu was born, and then captured, in Africa and taken to the Central Park Zoo in 1966. Six years later, she gave birth to daughter Pattycake, the first gorilla born in New York City.

She had three more daughters in Columbus. One, Binti Jua, became famous in 1996 at the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago when she rescued a toddler who had fallen into the gorilla habitat.

After her childbearing years, Lulu became a surrogate mother to baby gorillas whose mothers could not care for them.

Spokeswoman Patty Peters said Lulu had not been ill until the seizures started, and continued, over the weekend. A necropsy will be done to determine the cause of death, she said.

Lulu was considered an elderly gorilla. The oldest gorilla at the Columbus Zoo — at any zoo — is Colo, 54. Two other Columbus Zoo gorillas, Pongi and Mumbah, are in their 40s.

Sixteen gorillas remain at the zoo.