Zoo Needs $50,000 in Air Fare--for Five Gorillas

Airline travel is, at times, a complicated and expensive enterprise. It can really get hairy.

The point was brought home Monday when the San Diego Zoo announced that it needed $50,000 to charter a jet to fly five gorillas from Cincinnati and Philadelphia to Lindbergh Field.

Gorillas are not exactly nuts about airline travel. They apparently loathe the stops and delays common to commercial flights. The friendly skies are not something most gorillas want to beat their chests about under any circumstances.

The zoo needs to charter a jet specially equipped to carry the gorillas, either in the cargo bin or cabin, but primarily in the fastest time possible from the East to San Diego.

Two of the gorillas, Memba and Alvila, were sent to Philadelphia in July, 1989, when construction began on the $11.5-million Gorilla Tropics exhibit, scheduled to open at the San Diego Zoo on March 23.

Memba was captured in the wild, and Alvila is a native of San Diego--the first of two apes born at the zoo. The second gorilla native son, Gordie, is in residence at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

On the way east, the pair traveled like real players--that is to say, in the borrowed San Diego Padres jet with some of the first-class seats removed to make way for cages. The jet cannot be adjusted to make room for the three additional gorillas joining them for the return trip.

Gorilla Tropics obtained the new gorillas from the Cincinnati Zoo in what might be called a multi-gorilla transaction. The problem now, said zoo spokesman Jeff Jouett, is how to transport the big five from the Eastern Seaboard to Balboa Park.

“We’re left with the prospect of moving five gorillas across the country in the dead of winter,” Jouett said. “It’s just too risky to use a commercial plane. The cargo compartment is cold, but our main worry was flight delays, cancellations, having to leave the gorillas on the Tarmac. . . . We were fearing storage and facility problems that could damage the gorillas’ health.

“So, we have to charter a jet,” Jouett said with a sigh, “to go from San Diego to Cincy to Philly and back home. We figure it will take about $50,000.”