With barely two weeks of life and already confirmed that it is a male, the Valencian park wants to pay tribute to the conservationist and popularizer Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, a man who loved animals and taught many Spaniards to know and respect them.
On April 11, Ali, one of the three females in the BIOPARC Valencia gorilla breeding group, gave birth to her second male in the park. The first, which is now 6 years old, was called Ebo to draw attention to the Cameroon forest of the same name, which houses valuable biodiversity and in which BIOPARC Foundation collaborate to prevent the extinction of a group of gorillas. Now, with this new and hopeful birth, we wanted to remember Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente, a pioneer in the defense of nature who conveyed, like no one else, the love for animals.
Baby gorilla Felix.
Felix the little gorilla thus becomes a symbol of the change of attitude that people must take regarding our relationship with the environment and that the visionary Rodríguez de la Fuente promoted. He spread, through television with documentary series present in the memory of many Spaniards such as “Man and the Earth”, his wisdom about the different animal species and the need to conserve them to maintain the balance of biodiversity. This made him a respected personality for many generations who, thanks to him, gained knowledge of zoology and the natural environment. He was aadvanced in the dissemination of ethology and a promoter of environmental commitment actions.
The BIOPARC Valencia gorilla family, with four babies, offers a truly touching image, like a “live documentary”, since the baby's evolution is very positive and you can see how he sucks and clings tightly to the mother's fur. Everything happens under the watchful eye of Mambie, the “silverback” male and father, in addition to Ebo and Félix, of 2-year-old Virunga and 13-month-old Pepe.
This birth represents the consolidation of BIOPARC Valencia as a preservation center within the European Conservation Program (EEP). de Gorilla gorilla gorilla one of the species classified as “critically endangered” (Critically Endangered) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
