Motherhood is one of the most primal human traits, but in the broader animal kingdom it doesn’t always work that way.
At the Toledo Zoo and Aquarium, motherhood is a jungle to be navigated with love, discipline, and sometimes outright indifference.
For example, yellow stingrays are born the size of a small salad plate and then abandoned by mom to fend for themselves.
That means the zoo’s two baby rays are being reared behind the scenes in a bath tub-size tank, where keepers feed them small krill until they are large enough — the size of a dinner plate — to join the adults the exhibition tank.
These babies are lucky. Newborn rays in wild would be subject to predation.
A short stroll away in the aquatic area, two African penguin chicks are distinguished by their stubby blue-gray feathers, as opposed to the black and white coloring and uniquely spotted chests of the adults. They already relish one trait common to human teenagers; they huddle together at a distance from their parents.
Mammal mothers, by contrast, are legendary for their fierce protectiveness. Lucas, the youngest of the African elephants, turns 5 next month. He’s only about one-fifth the size he could grow to be; adult males can reach 11 feet tall at the shoulders and 13,000 pounds.
In the interim, mom Renee hovers nearby.
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Turn your attention to the primates, and motherhood takes on a more hectic bent. Remember when mom told you not to run in the house? She didn’t say anything about swinging from the rafters.
Mei Mei, the zoo’s female Francois langur, born in July, has already embraced a need for speed, zooming around the breed’s netted enclosure with astonishing agility. Hook her up to a battery and she could power a small village.
Langurs are highly social creatures, and here mom Ashes and a gaggle of siblings routinely engage each other in playful wrestling, especially where a piece of fruit is involved.
Nearby, Wakil, the baby orangutan born last July, is the ultimate mamma’s boy, and his doting mother Yaz would have it no other way. He clings to her back as she scampers high and low through the Primate Forest, his Bernie Sanders hair ruffled by the breeze. He’s reached an age where curiosity takes over; he reaches for ropes and tries to disengage from mom to play on the grass. Her long arms don’t allow him much freedom.
Unlike mom, dad Boomer studiously ignores his fourth child. Little Wakil is much too fragile to be handled by a 350-pound male — at least for now.
The most recent additions to the zoo’s baby pantheon are a female gibbon born in November, three ring-tailed lemurs (twins born to Fresca and a single birth to Fanta), a new mongoose lemur, and a polar bear cub, the seventh to be born at the zoo since 2006.
The cub, named Hope, was born Dec. 3 weighing about a pound. She now weighs an estimated 65 to 70 pounds and made her public debut Friday. Already she displays a penchant for curiosity and playfulness — at least when cameras are around.
It should be noted that babies don’t just happen at American zoos. Most, like Toledo, follow a Species Survival Plan, where breeding is meticulously managed, and partners are shuttled between facilities to ensure a diverse gene pool.
But wherever these zoo babies do go on display they invariably draw crowds. And often as not mom is hovering nearby, alternately exasperated, protective, and proud.
Contact Mike Pearson at: 419-724-6159 or mpearson@theblade.com.
First Published May 8, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
