Dura

Western lowland gorillas face extinction in the wild, with fewer than 100,000 left across their African range. Dura was born at Zoologisch-botanischer Garten Wilhelma in February 1988, daughter of Dina and Banjo, entering a world where her subspecies already carried the weight of critical endangerment.

Her early years took her across Europe’s zoo network. After spending her first three years at Wilhelma, she moved to Zoo Krefeld for a brief stay before settling at Royal Rotterdam Zoological Gardens in late 1991. Rotterdam became her longest home — she lived there for nearly fourteen years, from age three into her late teens.

In October 2005, she transferred to Zoologischer Garten Saarbrücken, where she would spend the final chapter of her life. Over thirty-three years, she moved between four institutions as part of the managed breeding programs that work to maintain genetic diversity in captive gorilla populations.

She died at Saarbrücken in March 2021 from complications related to an abdominal abscess. Her three decades of life spanned a period when conservation efforts for Gorilla gorilla gorilla intensified, though wild populations continued their steep decline across Central and West Africa.