Jojo the gorilla has spent his life alone. Can he finally find a companion?

In 2015, a young male gorilla named Jojo took his first tentative steps onto grass.

Until that moment, the 11-year-old ape had spent almost his entire life in a tiny cage at a private zoo in Gabon, after being taken from the wild as an infant. His family had been killed by the poachers who took him.

More than a decade later, Jojo is settled into a sanctuary – but he still lives alone. He hasn't had a family since he was taken, or indeed any gorilla friends.

Jojo's carers at the Lekedi Foundation in Gabon want to find a companion - possibly another rescued or zoo-bred gorilla – that Jojo could live and bond with. But finding him a friend - and bringing them into his life - is not straightforward.

"He's probably the most extreme case of isolation I've ever seen in a great ape," says Prof Gillian Forrester from the University of Sussex, who is studying Jojo as part of research into great ape psychology and how to help rescued animals recover from trauma.

Jojo was less than a year old – an infant clinging to his mother – when he was captured and sold.

Most gorillas spend the first 14 to 19 years of their life in an embedded family unit but he was kept completely alone and on public display at the private zoo that bought him.

Maxe Anaclet Makaba, who is head keeper at Lekedi and sees Jojo nearly every day, says it is clear he "craves human interaction".

"He will even go to the trouble of gathering leaves for us to hold, so that we [trade them] for a treat – to interact with us," he says.

Jojo also calls out when women he knows well visit his enclosure and then leave, making sounds that silverback males use to summon the females in the wild, explains Éric Willaume, who runs the sanctuary.

"He definitely feels lonely," he says.

Jojo is one of the more than 6,000 African primates estimated to have been bought or sold in the global trade of apes and other primates between 2000 and 2023. Thousands more are trafficked illegally for use as exotic pets, wild meat, and traditional medicine, the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance says., external

Experts believe when baby great apes are taken from their group at a young age like Jojo, they are left traumatised.

"If they're old enough to understand what happened to them, to understand their family was killed, they just lose the will to live," explains conservationist Tony King, from UK charity the Aspinall Foundation. "You see it in their eyes – the light goes out. I never knew where that expression came from, but I've seen it in gorillas."

King – who specialises in rehabilitating rescued great apes – remembers rescuing two infant sister gorillas who were brought to a sanctuary in the Congo Basin.

"They were clinging to each other," he says. "They stayed together in a little tight ball for about three days before they sort of unravelled. I think that's what kept them alive."

African charity the Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education (Grace) Center uses what it calls "gorilla-led" rehabilitation. When the team rescues a young gorilla from the pet trade, they put it with a group as soon as possible so they can socialise and essentially learn to be a gorilla.

But Jojo's case is unusual. He is fully mature and showing signs of harmful, chronic stress, according to Forrester.

In a game-changing approach to studying anxiety and trauma in apes, she has used a thermal camera to film Jojo's face. This allows her to monitor blood flow, revealing what appears to be a chronically cold nose.

It's a sign of a malfunctioning stress response. When any primate – a human, chimp or gorilla - is stressed, blood flow to the eyes and ears increases. It puts them on high alert for danger, but leaves their nose, temporarily, colder. For Jojo, this "nasal dip" as it is known, does not seem to recover.

"Being connected to others is incredibly important to our psychology as great apes," Forrester says. "Having another individual to share his life with would be so healing for him.

"I would assume other gorillas would help him process this grief and trauma."

Dr Katie Fawcett, from the Grace Center, says it's also "essential" for an animal to form social relationships to be considered for release into the wild - which is the ultimate goal for Jojo's keepers.

The bonds between gorillas – what we would call friendship - is key to their society, adds Dr Robin Morrison from the University of Zurich, who studies the social lives of mountain gorillas. In one recent study, she discovered that female mountain gorillas would seek out females they knew, even if they hadn't seen them for many years, when joining a group.

And she says a big part of a gorilla's normal social life is "just sitting together quietly sharing space".

But Jojo has never been given the opportunity to sit quietly with another gorilla.

No one knows how Jojo will react to a companion. Moving an animal from an accredited zoo would be a decision for an international committee and based on genetics, health and the animals' personalities and compatibility.

Any introduction to another animal would be done very carefully – perhaps giving them an object that smells of the other before they see each other.

These slow, cautious ape introductions do happen – when an animal moves from one zoo group to another, for example. Forrester has contacted a number of accredited zoos to explore the possibility of doing this for Jojo. But those discussions have fizzled out with no sign of progress.

The problem, she says, is "there aren't clear processes in place to do these kinds of trans-locations".

The international rules and processes for moving captive gorillas across international borders - from one zoo or safari park to another - are designed for breeding programmes.

"They're not designed for reintroductions into the wild, or to find companions for animals that might need them," says Forrester.

And because Jojo, who is probably in his 20s, has reached maturity, King thinks it might be too late for him to bond with other gorillas.

"Jojo's situation is unique, but he is probably best where he is," King says, adding that introducing him to another animal could, somewhat ironically, be a source of more stress for him.

Being alone is also natural, even relatively common, for mature male gorillas. According to Morrison, about a third of adult males are solitary. "When they reach adolescence, they tend to disperse and spend a good chunk of their life on their own."

Solo males will try to persuade females to form a group with them, but some don't succeed and may feel lonely as a consequence, Morrison believes. "If we think of loneliness in an evolutionary context - this mismatch between the social interactions they want and the social interactions they're getting. I suspect feeling lonely is part of the natural, evolutionary drive to attract females."

But while those phases – of family life and adult solitude - play a role in wild gorilla society, Jojo was forced into solitary confinement as an infant.

Morrison believes Jojo is probably both traumatised and lonely.

"[In the wild] gorillas move together, find food together, sleep together," she says. "So much of their lives is just being with this group."

That is what Jojo's keepers, Forrester, and others want for Jojo. A friend. Maybe a female, or a compatible male.

"It would be good for him to have a companion," says keeper Makaba. "Because being alone is like being cut off from the world - it's like being in prison.

"Having another gorilla there would be a good thing for him."