India’s only gorilla Polo still solo, waits for a mate

Mysore: It appears it’s not only people  who have a hard time finding soul mates, but  gorillas too.  India’s only gorilla, Polo, who lost his mate Sumati in 2000, has had a  checkered love life since.

Now 50, Polo is lonely and his stress levels are rising, according to  his keepers at the Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens in Mysore. 

A Western lowland gorilla, Polo was gifted as a mate for Sumati to the zoo on May 12, 1995. Sumati and her first mate,  Sugriva  were brought to Mysore in 1977 and soon became a star attraction.
But Sugriva died within a year of his arrival and in the 80s Israel gifted a male gorilla, Bobo to replace  him.

But it too did not live long. Polo, who  arrived in 1995 is clearly unlucky in  love as Sumati reportedly did not find him "perfect " and later died of cardiac arrest on October 4, 2000. The zoo authorities have hunted for a mate for Polo for years now, but have met with failure every time.

In 2009, the Mysore zoo had almost convinced the Gorilla Foundation, a US non-profit corporation dedicated to the protection and well-being of gorillas to find him a mate, but the deal did not go through.

At the inauguration of the five-day All India Zoo Directors' Workshop  organised by the Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens in collaboration with the Central Zoo Authority (CZA), New Delhi,  Mysore district-in-charge minister V. Srinivas Prasad  made a rather emotional appeal to the gathering to find a mate for Polo. A special request has also now been made to the Leipzig Zoo in Germany to find the lonely gorilla a companion.

According to official records, there are around 850 gorillas housed in 100 zoos around the world with a male-female ratio of 1:2. The Howletts Zoo Park in England has  the highest number , 43 (nine male and 34  female),  followed by Portlympne Zoo (28) in England ,  Zoo Atlanta (22) in Georgia,  Hanover Zoo (14) in Germany and Cincinnati Zoo (10) in Ohio.