Remembering Willie B. at Zoo Atlanta

The AJC reports today on the sad death of a 42-year-old female gorilla named Banga, and on the aging gorilla population at Zoo Atlanta.

There are four gorillas over the age of 40, which makes them senior citizens in gorilla years.

Of course, THE silverback at the zoo was Willie B. I wrote a cover story for Atlanta Magazine several years ago on Willie B., who personified the zoo for decades. Both the bad (he was originally kept in a concrete bunker with a TV set and a tire) and the good (the zoo finally built an outdoor gorilla habitat).

I spent a couple of weeks doing nothing but observing Willie B. I was able to actually enter the gorilla habitat, separated from him by only a deep moat. We sat there for nearly an hour, so close that I could hear him chewing the grass that he carefully plucked from the turf.