First look: Congo Falls brings gorillas back to the San Antonio Zoo in style

Congo Falls, the San Antonio Zoo’s hotly anticipated new attraction, doesn’t open to the public until this weekend, but it has been gorilla-ready for a while.

That means eagle-eyed visitors checking out neighboring enclosures have been able to catch glimpses of gorillas napping in the sun, chasing each other about and eyeballing the rhinos next door.

Seven Western Lowland gorillas are breaking in the new space, and there is enough room for the population to grow. 

“The guests are so excited,” said zoo President and CEO Tim Morrow, who was wearing a white hard hat bearing his name and an image of a gorilla. “As we walk around with logos, they ask, ‘When is it opening? When is it opening?’ ”

That happens Saturday. 

The first visitors will encounter gorillas in some pretty swanky digs.

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Congo Falls spreads across two densely landscaped acres broken into three distinct habitats, one of which is an indoor rain forest that is air conditioned for the comfort of both the apes and their human visitors. Outdoors, there’s a pool the gorillas can splash around in as well as a 30-foot-tall waterfall and the Mays Family Silverback Peak, a tower that soars 75 feet into the air.

Trees and other tall structures have proven popular with the three females, who like to climb, Morrow said. Termite mounds have enrichment elements, which is important to keep the gorillas mentally sharp and engaged with their surroundings. And berries and grapes are stashed in various places, allowing them to forage for their food.

Fittingly for a primo piece of real estate, the gorillas also have hillside views of the rest of the zoo as well as Brackenridge Park and downtown. 

“We wanted to design this where equal thought went into the experience of the gorilla as the guest,” Morrow said. “And so the gorillas have tons of choice in movement. They have enrichment everywhere. 

“And we also purposely created a back to that hill where they can get away if they want to be by themselves. In the old zoo back in the day, all zoos had concrete floors and super-simple designs so that you could always see the animal. And that is not a guarantee of a zoo anymore. We are trying to create a natural space, and if they want to be in a private space, they have that opportunity to be in a private space.”

The history of gorillas at the zoo aligns with changes over time in the way that zoos operate nationwide.

“If you look at what I call the zoo of yesteryear, we were places of menagerie collections -- lots of animals, one of each animal. Because there wasn’t an understanding of the social needs of all those species,” said Morrow, who just marked his 11th anniversary with the zoo. “By the '80s or ’90s, our zoo decided we can’t properly care for a group of gorillas, because our space was so small.”

That space is still part of the zoo. It was home to lemurs for a while, Morrow said, and is probably roughly the size of one of the entryways to Congo Falls. The gorillas' 21st century home is the largest enclosure in the zoo.

Mopie, the last gorilla to be cared for at the San Antonio Zoo until now, was sent to live with a group at the Smithsonian National Zoo in 1990.

Ever since, it seems, visitors have been asking for gorillas to join the other critters who call the San Antonio Zoo home.

“It’s taken us 35 years to get to the point where we could build a world-class habitat to bring gorillas back,” Morrow said. “So it’s really a tale of what zoos were and what they’ve become. And this is what they’ve become.”

The zoo team aimed to create a cutting edge habitat. To that end, the design team included gorilla specialists, animal welfare experts and conservation biologists.

Congo Falls' first residents are living in two groups that will not interact.

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A bachelor group – Shana, B’wenzi and Juba – previously lived together at the Dallas Zoo.

Sisters Andi, Merry and Anaka came from Zoo Atlanta. They have been joined by Ajari, a handsome silverback from the Houston Zoo. The foursome are forming a family group. The hope is that they eventually will produce babies.

The San Antonio Zoo is part of the Gorilla Species Survival Plan, which helps facilitate breeding at zoos across the country. It also works with other global programs that work to protect wildlife and biodiversity.

Conservation is an important part of what zoos do. Their work and that of other organizations helped to move Western Lowland gorillas from the critically endangered animals list to the endangered category.

“That’s a big win for us to celebrate,” said Ben Jones, vice president of conservation and education for the Houston Zoo and program leader for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Saving Animals From Extinction campaign on behalf of gorillas.

Zoos’ work for gorillas includes providing technical expertise and funding to conservation efforts. Educating visitors helps, too, since it can help inspire them to learn about what they can do to help in the animals' survival. And some of the money folks spend at the zoo on tickets, snacks and merchandise is poured into conservation, too.

“We’re all about saving animals in the wild,” sJones said. “So that is our mission, our passion, and that’s what we try to achieve.”

Crews at the San Antonio Zoo have spent this week putting the finishing touches on the public parts of the gorilla habitat. That includes a bright green walkway designed to mirror similar passages that the apes can take to traverse their new home as well as a spacious indoor viewing area outfitted with huge windows. And there are terrariums filled with African reptiles and a small stage where zoo staffers can give talks.

The last element to add to the mix is patrons.

“We’re just very excited for the public and especially the kids of this community that have never seen gorillas to get to learn about gorillas,” Morrow said. “The No. 1 animal people want to see at great zoos is gorillas. And we were one of the few zoos in the country that weren’t there. So this brings us back.

“We’ve gotten a lot of accolades the last couple of years – we’ve been named on the top10 zoos in the country list four times, best in Texas five times in the last six, seven years. So hopefully, this will get us to No. 1 in the country. Because we know it’s good for San Antonio.”