Loro Parque has celebrated this week the 50th birthday of the emblematic gorilla Schorsch, the oldest of the group that lives in the facilities of the best zoo in the world. To celebrate, his keepers have prepared a delicious fruit and jelly cake and a vegetable feast.
For animal welfare, it is a milestone that Schorsch has reached half a century, as the average life expectancy for this species in the wild is around 37 years and there are very few gorillas that reach this age under human care. In addition, the western lowland gorilla is critically endangered and its populations are in decline due to poaching and diseases such as the Ebola virus, among other reasons.
Schorsch was born on 3 March 1972 and is the son of Fritz, the oldest gorilla in Europe, who died in 2018 at the age of 55. He arrived at Loro Parque in 1994 from the Nuremberg Zoo and, once in Tenerife, he won the affection and sympathy of all the visitors to the Park thanks to his charm and charisma.
Due to his advanced age, Schorsch has lost visual acuity, but this does not prevent him from locating his environmental enrichment using touch.
