Correlates of sexual and maternal competence in captive gorillas

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Abstract
The captive gorilla population may not be self‐sustaining, in part because the overall birth rate is low and because many potential founders have failed to reproduce. We used questionnaires to collect standardized biographies of every gorilla held in North America. These biographies were searched for factors associated with reproductive success or failure.Captive‐born gorillas are reproducing at least as well as wild‐borns, when reproductive success is expressed as number of infants per year of reproductive opportunity. Mother‐reared females are reproductively more successful than hand‐reared females, but there is no difference in the reproductive success of mother‐reared and hand‐reared males. Social access to conspecifics in the 1st year is associated with higher reproductive success, at least for females. Reproductively successful and unsuccessful gorillas of both sexes have had equal access to potential mates, but unsuccessful animals are less likely than successful ones to exhibit normal sexual behavior.We conclude that many cases of reproductive failure are due to deficits in sexual behavior, which in turn may result from lack of early social experience with conspecifics. Some reproductive failure involves medical problems; interventive diagnostic techniques continue to be useful, if only to identify healthy individuals that can be managed intensively.The probability that a female will be a competent mother is not affected by her being wild‐born or captive‐born, or mother‐reared or hand‐reared.