KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — Sad news from Zoo Knoxville.
Chimpanzee Jambo delivered a stillborn baby girl last night. Her keepers did everything they could for her but weren't able to save the baby chimp.
It would have been the 14-year-old Jambo's first baby. Her pregnancy was announced in July. She came to the zoo from the Maryland Zoo in 2018 on a breeding recommendation from the Chimpanzee Species Survival Plan to save chimps from extinction.
"The chimpanzee group has been very attentive to her and Jambo appears to be coping well this morning," said the zoo in a Facebook post. "Please keep Jambo and her caretakers in your thoughts."
The last chimp to be born at Zoo Knoxville was Georgie in 2008. Zoo visitors loved watching the highly active and entertaining chimp grow up. He left the zoo last year to hopefully go off and start a family of his own.
Chimpanzees are highly endangered, with as few as 350,000 wild chimpanzees living in their native range in Africa. Their wild populations are decreasing due to habitat loss, disease, and wildlife trafficking.