Bobby: the gorilla on the wrong side of the law
by Henry Nicholls from on (#236RJ)
The western lowland gorilla was smuggled from Africa to Italy in the 1980s. As taxidermy, he is part of a new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland
Name: Bobby
Species: Western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)
Dates: 1983-2008
Claim to fame: Much-loved zoo animal
Where now: National Museum of Scotland
In 1994, magistrates from the Italian province of Ancona found the manager of a local circus guilty of importing a gorilla into the country. Bobby (variously also known as Bongo, Bongo III and Bongo Junior) had been captured as a baby in Equatorial Guinea more than a decade earlier and is thought to have been brought to Italy soon afterwards as "a chimpanzee".
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