Shindy

Western lowland gorillas face extinction in the wild, with fewer than 100,000 left across their African range. Shindy was born into this critically endangered subspecies at Royal Rotterdam Zoological Gardens in June 1985, the daughter of Annette and Ernst.

Her early years took her from the Netherlands to Ireland when she transferred to Dublin Zoo as a young gorilla in 1987. She spent three years there before moving to Amsterdam’s Natura Artis Magistra in March 1990, where she would live for nearly three decades.

Amsterdam became her long-term home, and she remained there until her death in February 2019. Her life spanned over 33 years across three different European institutions, contributing to the managed population of her subspecies during a critical period for gorilla conservation.