The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

["Anna Barr" <annaebarr AT hotmail.com>]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/04/BAGN06F4TE1.DTL

SAN FRANCISCO
Zoo hopes to forestall old gorilla's last gasp
Unprecedented surgery to remove Kubi's lung

Patricia Yollin, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 4, 2004

More than 11 million Americans are diagnosed annually with chronic 
bronchitis. Now joining that list is a San Francisco Zoo gorilla named Kubi, 
who has never smoked a day in his life.

In an operation that's a first in the world of both doctors and apes, 
surgeons from UCSF Medical Center will remove his right lung.

"We have no choice but to do surgery," said Dr. Freeland Dunker, head 
veterinarian at the zoo.

The operation in the zoo hospital will last six to eight hours and could 
happen as early as Thursday. There's a 30 percent chance that the patriarch 
of Gorilla World will die under the knife and a 50 percent chance he'll 
succumb within the next 30 days.

Without the operation, the medical experts agree, the silverback western 
lowland gorilla will surely die.

San Francisco-born Kubi, younger brother of Koko, the "talking gorilla" who 
became famous by learning sign language, is the son of parents born in the 
wild -- and genetically valuable because of that.

Kubi has been coughing for most of his life and developed pneumonia in his 
right lung four years ago, Dunker said. It was successfully treated and went 
into remission, but returned in December -- with two different kinds of 
bacteria increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

"He presents unique challenges," said Dr. Lundy Campbell, an 
anesthesiologist on the UCSF team that will deal with the silverback, who 
turned 29 on Saturday.For starters, Kubi weighs in at 415 pounds.

"We've had patients in the 500-pound range, and they're a challenge on their 
own," Campbell said. "But he's just so big and muscular."

He's also very smart, Campbell added, and has been subjected to many drug- 
filled darts over the years. He tries to pull them out and sometimes 
succeeds, which means sedating him could take 15 minutes to an hour.

If he loses a lot of blood during surgery, it will be impossible to replace. 
"There's no gorilla blood bank to call," Campbell said.

While Kubi is recovering after surgery, just giving him antibiotics and 
keeping him calm will be difficult. Darts might anger him and cause him to 
rip his sutures. Pills hidden in food are also no sure thing, since he's 
unlikely to have much of an appetite -- and is fussy in any case.

"His pills used to be in fruit yogurt," Kerr said. "Then he'd eat sourdough 
bread. Now it has to be cinnamon-raisin bread and peanut butter and jelly 
sandwiches."

And so, instead of resorting to pills and darts, Dunker and the UCSF team 
are hoping to find and implant a pump under his skin to diffuse antibiotics 
into his body.

Infection could be another problem.

"There's no way they can put him in the intensive care unit," Campbell said. 
"And he can't have any tubes or drains. He'll pull them all out because he 
won't understand anything."

It's the same reason he's never been able to use a nebulizer -- he would 
just eat it.

For at least five days after the surgery, Kubi will be under 24-hour watch 
by keepers and vets at the zoo.

The operation itself will be unprecedented -- the first thoracic surgery 
ever done on a gorilla, as far as Dunker and Campbell can tell.

The surgeons will be Drs. Chuck Hoopes and David Jablons, who coincidentally 
performed a double-lung transplant in December on Carrie Shellhammer, one of 
the two people who received transplants that The Chronicle is following this 
year. The other, Matt Callison, got heart transplant surgery from Hoopes the 
same day.

Although gorilla and human anatomies are similar, except for the barrel 
chest, "a lot of it will be making it up as we go along," Campbell said.

Despite the risks, Dunker and the UCSF team agree that Kubi, who is the 
equivalent of a 60-year-old human and has an average life expectancy of 35 
gorilla years, must have the surgery.

These days, he tends to stay inside the zoo's gorilla house much of the 
time. On a recent morning, though, he emerged to socialize a bit and eat 
some apples, bananas and grapes that were tossed his way. With an 
outstretched hand and a demanding stare, he made sure the fruits kept 
coming.

His longtime and hugely devoted keeper, Mary Kerr, has known Kubi since 
1978, when she began working at the zoo. He was 3 years old, and his mother, 
Jackie, had just died of respiratory illness.

"He was just a little tiny guy," Kerr said. "He was feeling the loss of his 
mother. Over time, he perked up."

He was always the favorite of his father, Bwana, and never turned on him -- 
unlike typical silverbacks, whose sexually mature males vie for dominance 
and eventually, in the wild, leave their clans and live alone until they can 
make hostile takeover bids elsewhere.

Kubi's own sons reside elsewhere in the zoo and will leave soon for the 
Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kan. Shango, 15, moved out of Gorilla World 
two years ago after clashing repeatedly with his father. Barney, 10, 
relocated in February after too many overtures to the females, forcing Kubi 
to intervene.

"The role of the silverback is to break up fights," said Kerr, who added 
that Kubi was getting pretty tired of being a mediator.

With Kubi's sons gone, life is calmer now in Gorilla World. Kubi, by all 
accounts an exceptionally gentle father, still has sex on occasion with 
Bwang, his partner of 22 years and mother of his sons and only daughter, 
5-year-old Nneka.

"He's constantly making sexual solicitations to her," said Kerr, as his 
yodeling cries indicated yet another attempt. "He's so stuck on her. He's 
very indulgent. She'll yank some food from him, and he'll put up with it."

Bwang is rarely interested in sex -- unless Kubi starts flirting with the 
other females in Gorilla World.

Besides Nneka, there's Pogo, the childless fortysomething "great auntie" of 
the clan, born in the wild but raised by missionaries in a Cameroon leper 
colony. There's also Zora, who likes to throw dirt and feces at human 
visitors.

"Everyone screams and runs, so she's queen of the grotto for a few minutes," 
Kerr said.

Kubi's proper name is Mkubwa, which means big and strong in Swahili, and it 
typifies his overall condition, despite his diseased lung, Campbell said.

"He is impressive," the anesthesiologist said. "Even though he's been ill, 
the zoo has kept him in pretty good health. That will help him."

UCSF borrowed the skull of his father, Bwana, to do a CT scan and get a 
better sense of gorilla anatomy. Hoopes, who came to San Francisco from Duke 
University, worked on some apes at the Duke Primate Center, but nothing 
larger than a chimp.

Kubi's bronchitis could be related to his sinuses or allergies, and ear, 
nose and throat specialists from UCSF also will attend the surgery. UC Davis 
is lending some instruments, and all the outside doctors are donating their 
time, equipment and expertise.

"We'll probably write this up for the veterinary and medical journals," 
Campbell said.

_________________________________________________________________
Check out the coupons and bargains on MSN Offers! http://youroffers.msn.com