Behavioural profile and well-being assessment of castrated male Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) living in European Zoos.​

My master thesis is investigating the behavioural profile and well-being of Zungu, a castrated male Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) living in Basel Zoo. Zungu recently had some issues with the dominant male of the group, and the zoo wanted to know if this situation is creating a welfare problem for him.

A second part of my project is to investigate the behaviour of other castrated male Gorillas living in European Zoos (Gaia Park (The Netherlands) and La Vallée des Singes (France)). No studies have been conducted to date on the behaviour of castrated male Gorillas living in captivity, so, these data could help me analysing the behaviour of Zungu, and it would also be a starting point for future studies on this topic.

This project is both a research and an applied project, co-supervised by Prof. Klaus Zuberbühler (UniNe, Neuchâtel, Switzerland) and curator Adrian Baumeyer (Basel Zoo, Basel, Switzerland)."​

©Meddy Fouqet