King Ernie Sits on His Throne
Photos of Tuti, Layla and babies by Julie Larsen Maher
By Deborah Richardson
There’s a player in the Bronx who woos every lady in sight. His name is Ernie and he has fathered four kids with four different ladies: Julia, Layla, Kumi, and Tuti.
Ernie is a Silverback gorilla who lives at the Bronx Zoo.
Julia and Layla have his one-year-old sons. Kumi and Tuti both have three-month-old baby girls, newcomers to the Bronx Zoo.
The habitat where they reside is very spacious, with hills and all types of trees and vegetation. On May 12, Big Ernie, the Silverback player, was seated on the top of the hill. He seemed regal, like a king perched on his throne looking upon his subjects.
The gorillas’ habitat is divided into separate areas. “Although the gorillas in the adjoining habitat were fathered by Ernie, the female gorillas that Ernie is currently taking care of are not their mothers, so if they tried to combine them, they would fight for territorial rights,” said Frederick Hall, a security guard at the zoo.
Inside their habitat, the gorillas were very protective and nurturing with their young. Everywhere the mothers would go, there was their offspring clinging to their arms. At one point it seemed the zoo patrons were starting to annoy Layla so she grabbed her child and moved out of sight of the cameras. But Julia, who was not camera shy, basked in the adoration. Her son was the most active and outgoing of all the young gorillas.
And, at this moment, Ernie is mating with a fifth female Suki.
“She just ought to get pregnant, so she could stop being a troublemaker for the other gorillas,” said Hall.