University of Delaware Office of Public Relations The Messenger Vol. 5, No. 4/1996 Calamity's aftermath It was a phone call, received in the early hours before dawn last Dec. 24, that made Julie Unger, Delaware '87, feel as if her heart had stopped beating. And, she says, it has never beat in quite the same way since. Unger, lead primate keeper at the Philadelphia Zoo, and her fianc, Andrew Smith, Delaware '89, were preparing to celebrate the holidays at his mother's home in Wilmington, Del., when the phone call came. On the other end of the line was Unger's boss, Andy Baker, curator of primates at the zoo. She snapped wide awake when she heard his voice. "It was just so unusual for him to call me, especially at that hour, that I knew immediately something was very wrong. As soon as I heard his voice, I started mentally going down the rows of animals. What I said was, 'Oh no. Has one of my animals died?'" "Julie," Baker said, in a grief-stricken voice, "something bad has happened." "Which one?" she asked. "Who died?" "This is much worse," Baker said. "Worse than you can possibly imagine. There was a fire. Everyone died." Unger, who thought of the primates-especially the six-member gorilla troop-as a lovable, playful extended family, sank to the floor in pain. All 23 of the zoo's primates, the animals Unger loved and cared for daily, including her beloved gorillas, died in the worst zoo tragedy in U.S. history. An electrical fire destroyed the World of Primates and all its inhabitants. In addition to the gorillas, three orangutans, four gibbons and 10 lemurs perished. "Everyone told me not to, but I just had to go to the zoo right away," Unger says. "I know it sounds morbid but I had to walk down to the remains. I had to see for myself. It sounds awful, but I had to touch John's fur." John was the 450-pound silverback gorilla, leader of the western lowland gorilla family that died in the fire. Like a proud aunt, Unger kept a hand print of John's-made once while he was sedated for a medical procedure-on the door of her refrigerator at home. "John would reach through the cage and hold my hand," Unger recalls. "He was the exact opposite of the big, fierce gorilla people expected him to be. He was gentle and kind. He made sure the troop was respectful of one another." His two wives-Snickers and Samantha-also were favorites of Unger. She remembers winning over Snickers, whom she describes as "kind of gruff," with a series of through-the-bars backrubs. It was doubly hard to loose Samantha, whom Unger remembers as "the sweetest, most submissive gorilla," because she was pregnant when she died. "You have to keep your distance. You're never going to be part of their troop. But, when you feed and play with gorillas every day, you do develop a sort of sibling or parent/child relationship," Unger says. "It feels like a huge part of my life has been ripped out. My job was a much bigger part of my identity than I realized." In addition to feeling the personal loss, as a zoo professional, Unger also mourns the loss to the gene pool. All of the primates who died were endangered species. A supportive fianc and family as well as the zoo's mandatory grief counseling have helped Unger over this hurdle in her life. The tears that overflowed when she first gave interviews about the fire have been replaced by a sort of wistful sadness in her eyes. An optimist by nature, she has decided to stay at the zoo, working on a renewal project that aims to rebuild an even better, safer World of Primates. "To go somewhere else to work with gorillas again would almost be worth it," she says, "but my heart is here. I want to be part of the rebuilding effort. We have to make sure nothing like this ever happens again." Wearing a button with the Philadelphia Zoo's motto, "Remember, Rebuild, Renew," Unger admits to having adopted the saying as a personal mantra. "Somedays, when I'm driving to the zoo, and the sun is just coming up, I start to cry," she says. "But, I'll be okay. I'll be here when the new group shows up." Meanwhile, she spends her days at the zoo in Penrose Lab, caring for some Geoffroy's Marmosets and two Golden-Headed Lion Tamarins, which were housed next door to the World of Primates and are recovering from smoke inhalation sustained in the fire. Unger spends the rest of her time in the small mammal house, caring for tree shrews, ermine, a dwarf mongoose and a few small rodents. Instead of hiding blueberries in ice for her lively gorillas to find, or playing a favorite game of leaving their food in special secret places, she leaves dishes of cows' blood each night for the vampire bats to drink. While it will be years before a new primate facility is ready and a new male gorilla is found to establish a new troop, Unger says she is hopeful that the leader may, in fact, be one of John's offspring. John and Samantha have children and many grandchildren living in several zoos. National zoos cooperate rather than compete with each other, Unger says. For instance, Chaka, son of John and Samantha, now lives at the Cincinnati Zoo, where he is having some adjustment problems. In gorilla terms, that means he's taken to punching the females. Chaka may do better with new mates back in Philadelphia. "It's important to remember that the mission of zoos has changed from strictly entertainment to stressing conservation," Unger says. "Our animals didn't die in vain. Their lives had a purpose. They were delightful ambassadors for their wild cousins. If zoos can help people learn to care about one animal in captivity, that caring can spread to concern for animals in the wild. This has made zoos everywhere more determined to do right by the animals in our care." -Beth Thomas