Calaya

Western lowland gorillas face extinction in the wild, with fewer than 100,000 remaining across their range in Central Africa. Calaya was born at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle on August 30, 2002, the daughter of Amanda and Vip. She spent her first twelve years in the Pacific Northwest, learning essential social behaviors within her natal troop.

In February 2015, she transferred to the National Zoological Park in Washington D.C., where she has lived for nearly a decade. The move represented a carefully planned relocation designed to support breeding programs for this critically endangered subspecies.

Now over twenty years old, she has experienced life in two major zoological institutions. Her subspecies, Gorilla gorilla gorilla, holds the most precarious conservation status among all great apes according to the IUCN Red List. Each gorilla in managed care contributes to scientific understanding and conservation efforts for wild populations facing habitat loss and hunting pressure across equatorial Africa.