Cover Story: Kinyani and I

Kinyani is a flirt. Let’s start with that given.

After all, she did take the virginity of Willie B., the iconic gorilla who was the face of Zoo Atlanta until his death in 2000 at the age of 41. Kinyani is deaf, and the folks at Gorilla Haven are really itching to match her up with Oliver, the 19-year-old budding silverback at their facility who is also deaf.

I first got to know Kinyani 10 years ago. I was lucky. I got to know Willie B. when I did a story on him in celebration of his 40th birthday. I spent two weeks, hours every day, observing him and hanging out in his holding pen and interviewing his longtime keeper, Charles Horton. I also jumped every time Willie B. banged the metal in his cage, which was often and very loud. Eventually, it occurred to me that he was probably banging his cage just so he could watch me jump. Gorillas do, after all, have a sense of humor.

One afternoon, the gorilla habitat next to Willie B.’s was empty and they let me go out there. I sat at the very edge, next to a 15-foot-deep waterless moat, and watched Willie B. as he let his little daughter climb over his strong back and arms until he finally, very gently, swatted her away. After a while, he grew bored. He stood up and began to walk toward me. He sat down a few feet away, near the edge on his side of the moat.

We sat there for more than an hour, and it was the holiest moment of my life. It was if we were carrying on a wordless conversation. I was awestruck by what seemed to be an inherent wisdom in his eyes, as if he held deep and ancient secrets no human could ever understand.

A couple of days later, I was back in the holding pen when Horton was herding in the gorilla groups. Ivan’s group was across the hall and to the right of Willie B.’s group. As I watched Willie B., I was distracted when one of the female gorillas in Ivan’s group slid a plastic stool over next to the bars of their cage. She sat down and reached out, almost inviting me to walk over to her. “Go ahead,” Horton said. “That’s Kinyani. She’s a flirt. She wants to play.”

I cautiously walked up to the female gorilla. She reached her arm back out and took my hand, and looked away in what seemed like shyness. I marveled at her hand. It grasped the palm of my left hand, and I stroked it with my right. It was like touching a human hand clad in tightly fit leather gloves. And Kinyani’s fingernails were human, so amazingly like mine.

We held hands for several minutes until, without any warning, Kinyani grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me toward her. I have never before in my life felt such strength. Fortunately, she was only playing and allowed me to jerk free. Otherwise, I would’ve been pinned to the bars of her cage.

At the time, I didn’t appreciate how rare and unusual it is for a human to touch a gorilla. I didn’t know that the first human/gorilla contact wasn’t recorded until 1970 when a mountain gorilla called Peanut reached out to Dian Fossey and touched her on the arm.

After Willie B. died, I stopped going to the zoo. I missed him, and it made me sad to go there. It had been almost a decade since my last visit when Jane Dewar invited me to Zoo Atlanta to meet her and two primate keepers who had come in town from Toronto and Holland. We hooked up with Charles Horton at the zoo, and he gave us the insider’s tour.

At one point, we all stood on the observation deck in front of Ivan’s group. “Look, it’s Kinyani,” exclaimed Dewar, pointing at a female gorilla that was sitting on a rock with its back to us. “It’s your girlfriend,” she teased.

I didn’t recognize Kinyani, even when she turned her head around to check us out. We waved and even though Kinyani is now deaf and couldn’t hear us, we called out her name. A couple minutes later, she shifted her position on the rock to where she was facing us. “Look,” Dewar said. “She’s staring at you. She remembers you.”

Indeed, she was. I could feel the stare. I don’t know whether she remembered me (although, it must’ve been almost as rare for her to hold a human hand as it was for me to hold the hand of a gorilla), but her eyes didn’t leave me. We were there for almost 30 minutes while I interviewed the out-of-town guests. And every time I looked up, Kinyani’s eyes were on me. By the time we walked away to see the orangutans, there were other people in the observation area who were marveling over Kinyani. But when I walked back five minutes later, she had returned to the other side of the rock, her back again to the observation deck.

A while later, Horton led us into Ivan’s holding area and to a little spot away from the crowd where he likes to hang out. We were an arm’s length away from Ivan, and he is a magnificent creature to behold up close like that. But I was distracted when I glanced outside and saw Kinyani walking up. As I moved a few feet to get a better view of her, I happened to walk within a foot of the bars that separated me from Ivan. I had invaded his space and he was none too pleased. I was with four gorilla experts and had just embarrassed myself in front of them with a beginner’s mistake. They told me to step back. Even as I did, Ivan left his spot and moved over to where he was standing in front of me in a confrontational position. Finally, he eased back, satisfied that he’d put me in my place.

Or maybe he was satisfied that everyone else was laughing at me.

That was OK. Kinyani walked up close and Horton handed me a treat to throw to her. She eventually crowded into Ivan’s little nook, a couple of feet away from us. Kinyani and I didn’t hold hands again, but to be that close to gorillas again was a heart-stopping experience.