Mothers’ meeting: New mom and gorilla bond over baby in adorable encounter at Boston Zoo
- Emmily Austin from Jefferson, Maine, was visiting Franklin Park Zoo in Boston
- She sat beside the gorilla compound cradling her five-week-old son Canyon
- Kiki the gorilla shows Emmily her own son Pablo who she had in October
This is the heartwarming moment a zoo visitor shows her newborn baby to a mother gorilla who is fascinated by the human offspring.
The touching encounter occurred when Emmily Austin from Jefferson, Maine, sat down next to the gorilla enclosure at Franklin Park Zoo in Boston with her five-week-old son Canyon.
Footage filmed by Emmily’s husband Michael shows Kiki the gorilla pressing her face up to the enclosure window to get a closer look at Canyon.
The 39-year-old western lowland gorilla gave birth to her fifth baby in October, her first son, named Pablo.
Emmily Austin from Jefferson, Maine, was visiting Franklin Park Zoo along with her five-week-old son Canyon when she encountered Kiki the Gorilla
Kiki the Gorilla, left, tried to interact with Austin and her five-week-old son Canyon
Several people in the background can be heard exclaiming: ‘Oh my God!’ as the gorilla ambles up to the glass.
Kiki taps on the window and points to Canyon, apparently trying to hold his hand and unable to take her eyes off the baby boy, who sleeps throughout the encounter.
A woman in the background says: ‘That is so cute,’ before Mrs Austin points behind Kiki and says: ‘Look at her baby.’
After about four minutes, Kiki lifts up Pablo to show the visitors.
Mrs Austin told News Center Maine: ‘ She kept looking around the corner of the cave, and I was like, “She’s looking at Canyon.”
‘For well over five minutes, she just sat there watching [Canyon], just staring at him, just so lovingly.’
She added: ‘When I walked into the zoo that day, I never could’ve imagined that we would have had that experience. It was so beautiful, and we walked out just over the moon.’
Mr Austin said his wife kept telling him that Kiki seemed to be very interested in the baby but he thought she was just imagining it.
He added: ‘The next time she made eye contact with Kiki, she held up Canyon again and waved her over, then Kiki grabbed Pablo and put him on her leg to carry him over to us.
Kiki the gorilla gave birth to her fifth baby in October, her first son, named Pablo
Austin said: ‘When I walked into the zoo that day, I never could’ve imagined that we would have had that experience. It was so beautiful, and we walked out just over the moon’
‘My wife sat on the floor and Kiki came over and immediately started interacting with us.
‘It was one of the most amazing experiences to see her trying to hold Canyon’s hand, lick him through the glass, and she just kept on pointing to us and then down at him, almost as if she was telling us, “That’s your baby”.
‘She was talking to us with her hands. Pablo even pushed his face up to the glass at one point and they watched him, noses touching, together.
‘My wife and I both had tears in our eyes and we had several people tell us they had never witnessed something or experienced something so beautiful as this in their life.
‘Such an incredible memory to share with our son some day!’