S.D. Zoo Welcomes Back Its Top Bananas

A plane ride from Philadelphia and Cincinnati to Lindbergh Field on Saturday cost six air travelers $8,333.33 each for their one-way ticket.

And they got no Champagne.

They spent 10 hours traveling and went ape when they finally arrived. Only the silver-back Memba, a 21-year-old male gorilla, was peeved by the service. He clung to the bars of his crate and shook them vigorously. The others, all destined for the San Diego Zoo, were pleased by the attention they received from the eight attendants, curators and keepers during the chartered flight.

In fact, for a gorilla, it was first class. There were bananas, apple slices and red grapes--to say nothing of the cups of apple juice and orange juice. And the crates had hay.

“It couldn’t have gone smoother,” said Georganne Irvine, a zoo spokeswoman.

Two gorillas, Memba and Alvila, are returning to San Diego after spending 1 1/2 years at the Philadelphia Zoo while a new exhibit was constructed for them here. The other four, all females, are on loan from zoos in Cincinnati and Philadelphia. All six are Lowland gorillas, which is an endangered species.

When the six finally reached their $11.5-million “Gorilla Habitat” home, “they shot out of their crates,” said Rick Barongi, the San Diego Zoo’s mammal curator. He and other zoo officials tout this new exhibit, which opens March 23, as having “state-of-the-art” bedrooms. For a gorilla, apparently, that means stone-hard heated floors, sky lights, air-conditioning, special sleep platforms and hallways painted in “decorator colors: grape purple, taxi cab yellow, deep sky blue and three shades of green--shamrock, pale and forest.”

Their outdoor yard is planted with edible African foliage. It also sports trees, rocks, grassy hillsides, a stream and waterfall.

On Saturday, however, the gorillas were placed in separate bedrooms and not allowed to wander about their grounds, Barongi said. But as a reward for their travels, they were given all the carrots, apples, romaine lettuce and sweet potatoes that the could eat.

“Until Sunday,” Barongi said. “That’s when their standardized diet begins.”