Two years ago, a baby gorilla named Jameela was born at the Fort Worth Zoo via emergency cesarean section. The historic surgery was performed by a team of local doctors who typically operate on humans.
It was an extraordinary collaboration between the zoo’s veterinarians and human medical experts. Among them was Dr. Jamie Walker Erwin, a local OB-GYN who performed the C-section that brought Jameela into the world.
Jameela’s birth mother, Sekani, struggled to bond with Jameela after the birth, something zookeepers believed may have been a result of her never experiencing the flood of hormones associated with a full-term pregnancy and natural birth. Jameela was transferred to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in Ohio where she was adopted by a surrogate gorilla mom, Fredrica…