Another animal at the Dallas Zoo has died an untimely death: Zola, a young Western lowland gorilla, died on Wednesday, November 5, at age 23.
The zoo does not know why Zola died. According to their post, he showed symptoms of lethargy, reduced appetite, and signs of discomfort at the end of October. A necropsy will be performed.
"Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to begin breathing on his own afterward, despite the extraordinary efforts of our veterinary and animal care teams," their post says. "With his comfort as our priority, we made the difficult decision to let him go peacefully."
The zoo did not announce Zola's death immediately, instead waiting two days until Friday afternoon at 3 pm. Politicians and government agencies prefer to choose Friday afternoons to post news that is negative or controversial, since fewer people, and definitely fewer journalists, are online on Friday afternoons. It's called the "Friday news dump."
The death is very inconvenient for the Dallas Zoo since they were just about to ship off their male gorillas, which also include Juba, B'Wenzi, and Zola's half-brother Shana, to the San Antonio Zoo. Animals are very dear to the zoo — until it's time to ship them off to another zoo.
For now, the relocation of the other three male gorillas is "temporarily on hold" but the zoo says they will be moved "when the time is right," and that is all you need to know about that.
The zoo has already said that they'll be shipping in other gorillas to replace them — although we do not know which gorillas and from where. The Association of Zoos & Aquariums, the overseeing body for zoos, only divulges that kind of intel on a "need to know" basis. Right now, you and I do not need to know. If we did know which gorillas were coming and where they were coming from, we might ask questions that would force the zoo to explain what it's up to.
Zola was born at the Bronx Zoo in 2002 and became internet famous as the "breakdancing gorilla" for splashing in pools and puddles. Some animal experts attributed his actions to frustration at being locked inside a zoo. He was relocated to the Calgary Zoo in 2009 when he was only 7 years old — zoos always play up what great bonds and family ties their animals have, until it's time to ship them somewhere else, and then suddenly the bonds and family ties don't matter.
Unfortunately, Zola did not "integrate well" at the Calgary Zoo, so he got shipped off to the Dallas Zoo in 2013.
At least now he won't have to be relocated again.
Death count
Zola's death is one more in a long-running series of deaths at the Dallas Zoo in recent years, the most previous being Jata, a 7-year-old painted dog who died in June 2024. Jata also showed signs of lethargy and decreased appetite, reportedly due to kidney disease.
Whenever a death occurs, they always wax on about their "extraordinary" veterinary and animal care teams — and yet, so many of these deaths were either unexplained or completely caught their teams by surprise.
Zola the Western lowland gorilla is the latest to join this death march of animals at the Dallas Zoo:
- Jata, one of the zoo's three African painted dogs, died in June 2024, at seven years old.
- Ferrell, a 15-year-old giraffe, died in December, 2023, following "an unexpected fall in the barn" that injured the giraffe's jaw so badly, they were forced to euthanize him.
- Ajabu, a 6-year-old African elephant who died on May 8, 2023, from the herpes virus.
- Pin, a 35-year-old lappet-faced vulture, died on January 22, 2023, cause unknown.
- Jesse, a 14-year-old giraffe, died on October 29, 2021, cause unknown.
- Auggie, a 19-year-old giraffe, died in late October 2021 of liver failure.
- Marekani, a 3-month-old baby giraffe, sustained a mysterious injury and was euthanized on October 3, 2021.
- Kirk, a 31-year-old chimpanzee, died in August 2021 due to "surprise" heart disease.
- Keeya, a 6-year-old Hartmann's mountain zebra, died in March 2021 due to a mysterious unexplained head injury.
- Subira, a 24-year-old silverback gorilla, died suddenly in March 2020, due to a cough, or maybe cardiovascular disease. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Hope, a 23-year-old Western lowland gorilla, died suddenly in November 2019 after being at the zoo for only two years.
- Ola, an 8-year-old female African painted dog, was killed in July 2019 by two other painted dogs, less than a month after she was transferred to the zoo.
- Witten, a 1-year-old giraffe, died in June 2019 during a physical exam under anesthesia when he suddenly stopped breathing.
- Adhama, a baby hippopotamus, mysteriously died in 2018.
- Kipenzi, a baby giraffe, died in 2015 after running in her enclosure.
- Kamau, a young cheetah, died of pneumonia in 2014.
- Johari, a female lion, was killed in front of zoo spectators in 2013 by male lions with whom she shared an enclosure.
And in February 2021, they lost a crow called Onyx who was part of their "animal ambassador team," "participating in a training session" for a bird show. He was never found.
