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Meet Amban .. Monkeying around: We tell the story of how Ambam the walking gorilla took his first steps to global fame

By Liz Hull
Last updated at 10:15 AM on 29th January 2011

Tearing around in his nappy, draining his bottle of every last drop, he could be any other bouncy baby boy — but for the fact that he’s a little on the hairy side. And extremely strong. After all, how many infants have ripped the cat flap off the back door?

Yet, perhaps these enchanting family snaps provide vital clues to a story which has gripped the world in recent days — Ambam, the walking gorilla.

For here he is, 20 years ago, as a baby. And, as his adoptive mother discovered in a recent emotional reunion, the 34st titan still has very happy memories of his days as an honorary human.


Standing out: Ambam strolls in his enclosure at Port Lympne this week

Earlier this week, a film clip hit the internet showing Ambam walking round his home at Port Lympne Animal Park in Kent.

Since then, more than a million people have marvelled at this mighty silverback gorilla patrolling his enclosure like a ­proprietorial squire.

Ambam does not merely stand up like other apes do from time to time. He goes for a stroll. ‘British Gorilla Walks Like Man,’ declared Canada’s Montreal Gazette. Ambam is now big news from Malta to Adelaide.

More...

* Yes, he can walk. But just how close IS Ambam the gorilla to being human?
[url]www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350765/Gorilla-walks-like-man-filmed-zoo-Kent-Ambam-silverback.html
[/url][tag]* Ambam, the swaggering silverback gorilla who walks around his pen on two legs[/tag]

But few people know Ambam as well as zookeeper Jo Wheatley. During his infancy, she was the nearest he had to a mother.

And she believes that the year he spent with her and her then partner, Colin Angus, explains why Ambam likes to walk tall.

A year after his birth at the nearby Howletts Zoo, Ambam had to be removed from his mother.

The little chap had almost died when he was struck down by a stomach bug.

So, at the age of one, he went to live with Jo, now 42, and her then partner Colin Angus at their cottage next to the zoo. And Ambam soon settled in.


Putting his feet up: Baby Ambam snatches 40 winks on Jo Wheatley's sofa, which he commandeered as his bed

Jo recalls that he learned to eat off plates and drink from a cup. Initially, he slept on the floor of the lounge with Colin beside him for comfort, before progressing to the sofa.

And he was walking even then. ‘From the outset he was a very unusual gorilla. He has always been adept at standing on his hind legs. He often preferred to be fed standing up, sucking on a bottle,’ says Jo.

It has been suggested that the reason Ambam walks like a Grenadier guardsman is that he is simply copying human beings.


Bouncing baby: Complete with nappy, a one-year-old Ambam is bottle fed by his doting 'mother' Jo

Jo explains that there are several other factors at work, quite apart from his life with her. After all, he is not the first ape to have been reared by humans.

‘He was different from other hand-reared primates because he already knew he was a gorilla when he came to live with us,’ she explains. ‘Not only that, but he also knew he was a very special gorilla because his mother and father were the dominant gorillas in their family group.

‘But the year he spent in our cottage must have had an effect on him — it made him an extra-special chap.’

Ambam even developed a fondness for ­television. ‘We showed him a video of himself hanging onto his mother soon after he was born and he was transfixed,’ recalls Jo, now a mother of two herself.

‘He would often sit down and watch ­television with us at night and learned how to turn it on and off himself.’


Look at me, Mum!: His first steps, with a little support from Jo

He was a genuine part of the family. The couple took him on days out to a local nature reserve in a baby sling and he enjoyed bicycle rides in a baby backpack. Fellow shoppers were astonished when he accompanied them to the local supermarket.

But childcare arrangements could be tricky. ‘Like having a baby, caring for him was a 24/7 job,’ she recalls, ‘and he quickly started behaving like any human toddler.

On one occasion I was on my way out to work and Ambam didn’t want me to go. He chased after me crying as I went out the back door and ripped off the cat flap.’

Ambam was, at least, spared one or two of the more conventional baby rituals. ‘We didn’t put him in the bath,’ says Jo.

‘Gorillas don’t really like water, but if one of us was in the tub he would come and stand up on his hind legs alongside and splash and bat the water.’


Little monkey: Ambam loved to steal other people's food

Mealtimes were unusual, too. ‘He was always trying to steal what we were eating. It was often a nightmare. Like toddlers he also enjoyed play fighting, although his rough and tumble was much rougher.’

At the end of his year with Jo and Colin, Ambam was returned to Howletts before moving to its sister zoo, Port Lympne.

And last year, Jo took her children, Molly, 11, and Jonathan, eight, to see how he was getting on. It was the first time she had seen him in nearly 20 years. ‘Ambam sat very ­quietly at first, but then he came right over,’ says Jo.

‘When we went to walk away he started to call and cry, which is really unusual for an adult gorilla. It was an upset kind of cry. I’ve no doubt he recognised me. And I felt quite emotional, I felt so proud of him.’’

The memories came flooding back again when Jo saw Ambam in her Daily Mail ­earlier this week and reached for her photo album.

‘It was a brave decision by the zoo to take him away from his mother and give him a chance as a baby. But to see him turn out so well-balanced — literally well-balanced in an upright position — has given me an immense sense of satisfaction.’


Garden games: Intimate and playful with his human family

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG-VY6JiyDU&feature=player_embedded

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351612/Ambam-takes-steps-global-fame-gorilla-walks-like-man.html

Here is Amban's best upright behavior again ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxDI3s21yf8&feature=related

From your .. Why I am Not a Humanist ..

I first read Russell's essay a few years after being confirmed as a Lutheran and, of the many reasons offered for his views, it was the moral argument that stuck with me:

You will find that in the Gospels Christ said: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell." That was said to people who did not like His preaching. It is not really to my mind quite the best tone, and there are a great many of these things about hell. There is, of course, the familiar text about the sin against the Holy Ghost: "Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come." That text has caused an unspeakable amount of misery in the world, for all sorts of people have imagined that they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and thought that it would not be forgiven them either in this world or in the world to come. I really do not think that a person with a proper degree of kindliness in his nature would have put fears and terrors of this sort into the world.

Such arguments, along with the incompatibility of evolutionary biology with the Christian tradition, led me to abandon my faith.

[...]

Much of Appleby's article discusses the work of such theorists as Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Cary Wolfe and Donna Haraway. I have read Foucault and Haraway the way a heron might swallow a bird [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDvt7pqp8WQ ]: as a task that doesn't come naturally but which you choke down because you already started. As you might imagine, it wasn't very satisfying. I find much of their writing needlessly opaque and I haven't read any of the other theorists that Appleby mentions. However, I think the larger issue is an important one.

Humanism is a response to theism and seeks to find a meaningful existence for our fellow human beings without the supernatural.

But I prefer to have a worldview that incorporates all of the natural world.