An infamous gorilla who was once a staple of Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo has recently been rehomed a few hundred miles away in Pittsburgh.
Little Joe, a 33-year-old male silverback gorilla who once made headlines for escaping his enclosure and injuring a young girl, is settling in to his new habitat at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium. His arrival was part of an exchange, with Pittsburgh sending 7-year-old male western lowland gorilla Frankie to Boston, CBS News reports.
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The Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium shared a social media video of Little Joe exploring his new outdoor habitat last Tuesday. In the video, Little Joe can be seen inquisitively checking out his new surroundings.
“Little Joe, meet Pittsburgh! Pittsburgh, meet Little Joe!” the zoo’s Instagram caption reads. “Our new silverback gorilla took some time to explore his outdoor habitat for the first time today! He was curious about his new surroundings and did a little people watching. His keepers say he has a very sweet personality.”
“He is also a tea lover! He prefers chamomile and eats a cup of yogurt in the mornings! We’re so excited to welcome him to the Steel City!” the caption concluded.
Little Joe made headlines in September 2003 when he escaped his enclosure at the Franklin Park Zoo and ran into the city of Boston, attacking and injuring 2-year-old girl Nia Scott and her babysitter and then leading police and zookeepers on a nearly two-hour chase.
“He pushed the door open and he, like, swung me from my babysitter’s hip,” Scott recalled during a 2016 interview. “Then he, like, just started dragging me on the ground, and he scratched my face.”
Following the incident, the Franklin Park Zoo made safety upgrades, with Little Joe earning a reputation for being “curious, intelligent and gentle.”
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Will curiosity get the better of Little Joe once again in his new home in Pittsburgh? A Polymarket scenario taking bets on whether or not he’ll escape again gives it slim odds of happening, with traders currently giving it less than 1% odds.
Polymarket odds were at their highest toward the end of May at around 38%, but shortly after sunk to around 5%, then in mid-June started the descent to less than 1%.
The market has a few more weeks to change, with the rules stating that the market will close on July 31. Depending on how Little Joe settles into his new home, it’s possible the odds could rise — though his new enclosure appears pretty secure, complete with a large glass window.
The exchange is part of the American Association of Zoos & Aquariums’ gorilla species survival plan, which helps ensure a healthy and genetically divorce population of critically endangered gorillas in human care. Western lowland gorillas are a critically endangered species threatened in the wild by disease and poaching, as well as logging and mining practices.
The program’s hope is that Little Joe will fit in with Pittsburgh’s two adult females and two juvenile gorillas. As young male gorillas mature, they reach a point where they’re too old to be juveniles but too young to be silverbacks, so they usually band together with the other “blackbacks” in bachelor groups, which allows non-breeding males to live social lives while minimizing competition. Frankie from Pittsburgh will join a recently-formed bachelor group with two other males his size and age in Boston.
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