Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 2, 1991                   TAG: 9102020048
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

ZOOLOGIST/THERAPIST SAYS BOREDOM IS BIGGEST THREAT TO GORILLA SANITY

Put a gorilla in front of a TV soap opera with a bag of popcorn, and he'll go bonkers with the monotony. He's a swinger of tree limbs, not a couch potato.

Part of Lisa Stevens' job at the National Zoo is finding new ways to keep her gorillas busy and thus, happy. A zoologist, Stevens is manager of the zoo's primate population of monkeys and apes (68 in all) and acts as a family therapist to the gorillas.

"Zoo life is boring," she said. "There are no predators. They don't have to forage for food, which occupies most of their time in the wild. And they don't have to compete for a mate. Their mates are lying right there beside them."

So Stevens, 35, makes sure they have plenty of milk crates and plastic trash cans to stomp on and toss around. Snacks like sweet potatoes or carrots are hidden in their hay. For a surprise treat, their popcorn is sprinkled with spices.

Their keepers give them plastic tubes stuffed with seed-laden peanut butter, and challenge the gorillas to extract the goodies. Bamboo branches or burlap rags are fun to play with. So paper towels or grocery bags, which provide extra fiber for digestion.

Stevens says she has placed TV sets in the cages of solitary gorillas to provide some excitement, but it didn't work. "They have almost no interest in TV," she said.

Her delicate mission is to blend six unrelated gorillas into a healthy, happy family unit that will produce offspring. "We facilitate in captivity what happens naturally in the wild," she says.

It's not an easy task. All but one of the gorillas, Tomoka, the dominant, 395-pound male, were brought in from other zoos, and nobody knew whether they'd be friends or lovers until they met.

"It's up to us to decide what kind of social groupings to put them in," Stevens said.

So far, her matchmaking skills are a success. The National Zoo's three males and three females are getting along so well together that Mandara, an 8-year-old female on loan from the Milwaukee Zoo, has gotten pregnant, thanks to Augustus, a 9-year-old male from the Bronx Zoo.

Stevens is excited at the prospect of seeing the first gorilla birth at the National Zoo in 18 years, if all goes well.

This mating triumph was set into motion by a national committee of zoo officials that serves, in effect, as a dating service for gorillas and other endangered species held in U.S. captivity.

She is the kind of therapist who prefers to let her patients settle family squabbles by themselves.

"I try to interfere as little as possible. They resolve their own differences, just as they do in the wild," Stevens said.

"When they're fighting over food or a sneak attack by another gorilla, there's a lot of screaming, hair-pulling, biting and scratching," she said.

"People get worried and say, `My God, they're going to kill each other,' but they very rarely inflict injuries on each other. They do raise a lot of commotion, and it's very impressive to us humans."