Prague Zoo gorilla survives difficult labour

Prague, Feb 25 (CTK) - Kamba, a 40-year-old gorilla from the Prague Zoological Garden, cut the umbilical cord during a difficult delivery on Sunday and veterinaries had to take the dead offspring from her using a Caesarian section, zoo representatives told journalists yesterday.

Kamba, the oldest of the Prague gorillas, experienced another difficult delivery in which the offspring also died in 2007.

More than 20 breeders, veterinaries and physicians assisted in the delivery that started in the morning on Sunday

Kamba's labour started on Sunday morning. The first big complication appeared after a few hours when a part of the umbilical cord appeared. She cut it, which was fatal for her unborn young.

Obstetrician Radovan Vlk, from the Prague-Motol Teaching Hospital, said doctors uncoverd a benign 26-cm tumour in the lower part or Kamba's womb that prevented the young's head to progress to the pelvis.

Kamba then bit the umbilical cord and ate a part of it.

In addition, Kamba did not have contractions and she seemed unable to deliver the young by herself. That is why she was tranquillised and operated on, though the step was risky in view of her heart troubles.

Zoo representatives said this was the first Caesarean section performed on a gorilla in Europe. Doctors consulted beforehand with experts in teh Untied States and Australia about the operation.

Twenty experts assisted in the delivery. Sixty people participated in the preparations of several months and an improvised labour ward was ready in the pavilion's background.

Zoo director Miroslav Bobek dismissed the opinion that the Caesarian section was to be conducted preventively.

He said other but a natural delivery is always problematic in gorillas because the mother may not accept the young.

In view of Kamba's age, the womb tumour and serious complications in the two deliveries doctors ligated Kamba's Fallopian tubes so that she may not become pregnant any more.

Kamba was born in the Cameroon rain forests in the early 1970s. At the age of two, her family was killed out by poachers and Kamba ended up in the zoo in Leipzig, Germany. Later she moved to other zoos before definitively settling down in Prague in 2005.

The breeders describe her as an element cementing the gorilla group and an "aunt" tenderly taking caring of all other offspring.

After Kamba gave birth to a stillborn young in 2007, the zoo said she will never have her own offspring in view of her high age. Last year, it surprisingly turned out that she was pregnant again.