00:00Hi, I'm Amanda. I'm one of the senior primate keepers at Audubon Zoo. We have
00:07some exciting news to share with all of you. Our western lowland gorilla, Tumani,
00:11is expecting. We have been doing maternal behaviors with Tumani for years. It's
00:17really important for us to be able to get hands-on through protected contact,
00:21especially with our veterinary staff. We've worked on behaviors such as
00:24ultrasound training and using a fetal Doppler to listen to the baby's heart
00:28rate. Unlike human medicine where you have sort of scheduled ultrasounds when
00:32you're pregnant, we try to do this as often as possible and that's because
00:35Tumani can't necessarily tell us when there's a problem. So in order to keep
00:39the best tabs on her and her baby's health, we try to monitor as frequently as
00:42we are able to. As her pregnancy progresses, we expect to see all the same
00:46things that you might see with a human pregnancy. As that baby develops, she'll
00:49get a little bit bigger, she'll get a little bit rounder. You know, once it's
00:52towards the end of her pregnancy, she might be a little bit more tired because
00:55she's carrying around that extra baby weight. But it's pretty similar to a
00:58human pregnancy. This gorilla birth is extremely important for the Audubon Zoo
01:02because it's going to allow for Tumani to experience motherhood as well as our
01:07troop experience family dynamics. In 2020, Tumani gave birth to an infant but
01:12unfortunately, we lost the infant due to a very complex medical condition with
01:18Tumani. With this pregnancy, we're able to monitor her more closely due to
01:23advances in technology. So we're able to watch her remotely through different
01:28types of cameras. We also made some minor modifications to an indoor space to
01:35continue to provide excellent care for Tumani. I have worked with gorilla kids
01:39before, but I've never gotten to work with a newborn gorilla. So this will be a
01:43new experience for me that I can't, I'm just ecstatic for.
