Zoo Atlanta opens its Gorillas of Cameroon exhibit. This project immediately sets a new benchmark for landscape immersion and naturalistic habitats for these primates, and wins several awards including an ASLA Significant Achievement Award. Dramatically, Willie B., a 29-year-old Western Lowland Gorilla who had come to the Zoo as a baby and had lived his entire life indoors, stepped outside for the first time and enthusiastically enjoyed his new outdoor home. In time it would also become the home of a new group of gorillas, some of whom became the mothers of Willie B.’s five offspring. Willie B. passed away in 2000, but his legacy lives on in what is now an internationally recognized gorilla program, and in his children and grandchildren.
