The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore doesn't have any mountain gorillas, but it's about to become a worldwide base for medical care for the endangered species.
The Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project announced yesterday that it would move its DNA specimens and other medical research data from its headquarters at the Morris Animal Foundation in Colorado to Baltimore, the nation's third-oldest zoo.
"This means that we at the zoo are associated with the leading conservation project in the world," zoo President Elizabeth "Billie" Grieb said.
Grieb said the gorilla project would use some of the zoo's research facilities, but the program will be its own nonprofit organization and conduct its own fundraising.
The program - which provides in-field veterinary care to mountain gorillas that suffer from human-caused or life-threatening diseases and illnesses - will continue to receive funding from the Morris Foundation, said Dr. Patricia Olson, the foundation's president and chief executive officer.
The gorilla project began in 1986 at the request of Dian Fossey, a famed gorilla researcher and advocate. At that time, researchers said that the fewer than 250 remaining mountain gorillas were in danger because of illness, poaching and deforestation. Today, researchers said, thanks to the work of groups such as the gorilla project, about 700 mountain gorillas live in Africa.
Baltimore's zoo has long had connections to the gorilla project. In 1998, Dr. Michael R. Cranfield, the zoo's director of animal health, research and conservation, was named the gorilla project's part-time director.
Cranfield said the program's veterinarians go to the habitat of the gorillas and provide medication and medical procedures.
"We are building programs as a model of saving any wildlife, not just gorillas," Cranfield said.
Starting with one veterinarian in 1986, the project has swelled to eight veterinarians and a large support staff.
The program "has outgrown our house [in Colorado], and we needed more partners to help," Olson said. "We needed additional partners, and we felt that the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore would be good support."
Cranfield said Baltimore is an important asset to the growth of the program.
"Baltimore has tremendous medical facilities for both veterinarian and human medicine, and we have been taking advantage of this for a long time," Cranfield said.
