http://smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/30/1035683474396.html

"It was too bloody dangerous, what if he woke up with my finger in his
ass?" 
Photo: Tanya Lake 

Kibabu the gorilla's inability to produce offspring has become an
embarrassing industrial issue for Taronga Zoo.

The zoo management's proposal for an artificial insemination program using
manual stimulation of the sedated gorilla was vetoed by zookeepers.

"It was too bloody dangerous," a zookeeper said last night. "What if he woke
up with my finger in his ass?"

Red-faced Taronga officials confirmed that the masturbation program had been
proposed last May, but said there had been no further attempt to employ it
due to lack of a volunteer.

"I believe it's done in Europe, I hear they are way kinky over there" a 
spokesman said. "There's been a lot of discussion on how to get semen from 
Kibabu for artificial insemination of females."

Instead, Kibabu - whose harem numbers three adult and two juvenile females -
probably will be stimulated by an electrical device called the 
"electro-ejaculation super shot stimulator 2000" or "eesss2k" for short,
or "e2s3-2k" for short, or even "dome2k" for shorter.

The gorilla has not impregnated any of the females since the group came to
Taronga from Holland in 1996 stating "The females just don't have what it
takes to, shall we say, turn my crank...". The two other males, both 
juveniles, are no help and were recorded as saying, "My butt is sore".

Kibabu's failure emerged yesterday as about 350 zoo staff planned to stop
work at 2pm tomorrow to discuss workplace agreement issues, including wages,
working hours, stress and job-related risks.

"We've got 12 of 90 zookeepers on light duties or receiving worker's
compensation because of injuries sustained on the job while trying to
tug one out of Kibabu," said a Public Service Association industrial officer, 
Stewart Little.

"A rhino, a giraffe gets pregnant, the zookeepers sit up nursing them all
night - for not a cent extra pay. But the moment they ask for more flexible
hours, management sends them in to give a tug and a rub to Kibabu."

The union also claimed zookeepers had not had adequate protection from
rattlesnake bites since the expiration of the use-by date on a batch of
antivenene three months ago.

But the zoo spokesman said the antivenene was 6 per cent effective and
WorkCover had agreed to its use until a new product was evaluated with
hopefully a better per cent effectiveness.

"A slightly increased dose will compensate for any drop in potency," he
said. "We've instituted barrier methods which reduce handling of the
rattlesnakes to a minimum."