Slain Cincinnati Gorilla’s Sperm To Be Preserved in ‘Frozen Zoo’

Harambe, the Cincinnati zoo gorilla, was a 17-year-old male who was shot dead to protect a child.

A boy brings flowers to put beside a statue of a gorilla outside the shuttered Gorilla World exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Monday, 30 May 2016, in Cincinnati. (Photo: AP)

• After shooting a gorilla dead at the Cincinnati Zoo to save a four-year-old boy, zoo officials said they had collected a sample of his sperm, raising hopes among distraught fans that Harambe could sire offspring even in death.
  
  
• But officials at the main US body that oversees breeding of zoo animals said it was highly unlikely that the Western lowland gorilla’s contribution to the nation’s “frozen zoo” of genetic material of rare and endangered species would be used to breed.
  
  
• Harambe’s sperm will likely go into a collection of samples taken from gorillas and other animals that are preserved in liquid nitrogen and typically viable for hundreds of years, said the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians Director Robert Hilsenroth.
  

(With agency inputs.)

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