Faulty reasoning signals

• Confirmation Bias - 0.6% (4 hits)
• Anchoring Bias - 0%
• Availability Heuristic - 7.3% (48 hits)
• Representativeness Heuristic - 3.8% (25 hits)
• Hindsight Bias - 7.9% (52 hits)
• Overconfidence Bias - 0%
• Framing Effect - 5.1% (34 hits)
• Loss Aversion - 7.6% (50 hits)
• Status Quo Bias - 2% (13 hits)
• Sunk Cost Effect - 0%
• Optimism Bias - 20.1% (133 hits)
• Pessimism Bias - 0%

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Gorilla moms baby swap at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo

In a story that sounds more akin to a Greek myth or a Shakespearean play, two new gorilla moms at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo are raising each other's baby boys.

Olympia is raising Jamani's baby, Jamani is nursing Olympia's newborn son, and apparently, all is well, according to the zoo's animal care manager of primates, Arden Robert.

"We did a 'swapsies,' but that's OK," Robert said.

"Olympia is not looking at the baby Jamani has with the thought of, 'Oh, that's mine.'

I think both girls are just so happy to have babies because they're such great moms and they like being moms, we think."

Although it all seems to have worked out in the end, the birthing process and early days for the new gorilla babies included troubling developments and a few scary moments.

While Jamani had a quick uncomplicated birth on May 18, things did not go as smoothly for Olympia.

"We were noticing changes in the baby's heart rate, changes in the amount of fluid that she had," Robert said.

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After three days of intense observation and tests, the medical team of doctors, veterinarians, and OB-GYN consultants, along with the management team at the zoo, decided to intervene.

"Once we had her down at animal health, at our hospital, we decided to move to a C-section just because she wouldn't have been able to deliver naturally even with our intervention, and we didn't want to put her in any distress or the baby in any distress," Robert said.

Robert reached out to the Species Survival Plan, a conservation program that works with zoos to sustain populations of threatened and endangered animals in captivity to prevent their extinction.

Jamani and Olympia are western lowland gorillas, which are a critically endangered species.

They arrived in Seattle in 2022 from the North Carolina Zoo.

"There hasn't been a lot of gorilla C-sections in history," Robert said.

"We only knew of one other that had happened in the United States."

Robert said the operation went well, and Olympia was back with her troop after only a single night of recovery.

They first put Olympia and Jamani together and put Olympia's baby through a "baby door."

Olympia was interested in the new baby, but so was Jamani.

"Jamani just kind of picked up the kiddo and walked away with it," Robert said.

"And that was fine."

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Zoo workers immobilized Jamani and took her baby back to check him out and feed him from a bottle for a few days.

"Then we made the decision to put him back with Olympia, to give Olympia a chance to be a mom," she said.

Since then, it's been a peaceful month of baby watching and mothering — Olympia with Jamani's baby and vice versa.

Robert said both babies are hitting their milestones and are starting to explore scraps of solid food that their mothers occasionally drop.

"Olympia is putting the baby on her head and back already, which is a little soon for gorillas, but she realizes the kid can hang on tight while she does other things," she said.

"So, yeah, they're all doing great."

Robert said gorillas in the wild often hand off babies to siblings or relatives as a form of child care, but less so with newborns.

"This is pretty common," she said.

"Not at this early of an age, but it's working out for us."

As for the father of both baby boys, 22-year-old silverback Nadaya plays a less hands-on role in the parenting process.

"Nadaya has sniffed the infants.

He's touched them," Robert said.

"But silverbacks really don't play a big role right now in the father rearing.

His job right now is to protect the troop."