Fatima †

Wild-caught as an infant from the forests of Africa, Fatima arrived at Allwetterzoo Münster in July 1975 when she was just two years old. She belonged to a generation of gorillas taken from their natural habitat during an era when conservation practices differed vastly from today’s standards.

For over twenty-six years, she lived as part of the gorilla group at Münster before transferring to Zoo Givskud in Denmark in December 2001. Her time there proved brief — just sixteen months — before she returned to familiar territory at Allwetterzoo Münster in April 2003.

Back at Münster, she spent her final twelve years in the care of keepers who had known her for decades. Her subspecies faces mounting pressure in the wild, where fewer than 100,000 western lowland gorillas remain across central and western Africa. The IUCN lists them as Critically Endangered.

After a prolonged and severe illness, she died at Allwetterzoo Münster in October 2015. She was forty-two years old, having lived through four decades of changing approaches to gorilla care and conservation.