Tuena

Western lowland gorillas face extinction in the wild, with fewer than 100,000 left across their African range. Tuena represents one of the captive-born members of this critically endangered subspecies, the daughter of Tamani and Bokito at Royal Rotterdam Zoological Gardens.

She spent her first seven years in Rotterdam, where keepers watched her develop from infant to juvenile. The transition from her birth home came in 2016, when she moved to Safaripark Beekse Bergen as part of the managed breeding program for her subspecies.

Nearly a decade passed at Beekse Bergen before her most recent move brought her to Natura Artis Magistra in early 2026. At seventeen years old, she has experienced life in three different Dutch institutions, each transfer carefully coordinated through the European breeding program.

Her subspecies, Gorilla gorilla gorilla, carries the IUCN’s most urgent conservation classification. Every captive-born gorilla like Tuena contributes to maintaining genetic diversity in managed populations while their wild counterparts face ongoing threats from habitat loss and hunting pressure.