At the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, an infant gorilla named Wumundi gets some tender loving care from a dedicated keeper and lots of attention from curious visitors.

He is on with a keeper all the time 24 hours a day.

Zoo spokesman Sean Anglum explains that the baby’s real mother abandoned him at birth. Twelve-year-old Kwisha was hand raised by humans with diapers and bottle. She had nowhere to learn how to raise her own young.

His mom gave birth to him and didn’t really know what to do with him. She was hand reared; she never had a child before; she had never been around other gorillas that have a baby so she really didn’t know any of the procedure. She didn’t know what to do.

Wild gorillas, on the other hand, have plenty of role models.

I often tell people of the human, has never seen a baby and never seen, you know, anything on TV, or books about a baby, and have a baby, they probably wouldn’t know what to do either. We just take it for granted that, so much around us teaches us what we need to know. And they are really about the same way; they need to learn most of things they know.

With his own mom unable to care for him, the task of rearing little Wumundi has fallen on keepers like Mandy Hollingsworth. But he is not being raised to be like his mother. Instead of treating Wumundi like a human baby, Mandy is acting like a gorilla mom.

He used to ride on our stomachs when he was little. And now he’s moved onto the back which is how he would be with his mom too. And he likes sit on our backs, gravitates on its sides, so it’s not as much of a struggle to hold on as when he was on the front. Getting him back there is toughest time, but once he is up, he is good. Wear knee pads, because it’s hard on knees, crawling around all day. And you know we climb around. We’re not as good as the gorillas are, but we try.

Mandy is one of free keepers who care for little Wumundi in the gorilla enclosure every day. The team of 17 volunteers take on night duty. He’s never left alone, just like a baby gorilla in the wild. And he can see, smell and touch other gorillas, although separated by a fence.

When in the past, they may have been dressed up in clothes, even in addition to wearing diapers, now we are trying to treat them more like a gorilla so they know that they are gorillas, and it creates a lot less confusion in their minds. And in the gorilla troop’s mind when they get him back, he really is one of them, he is not a hairy human.

The bottle-fed baby has started to eat solid foods. And he is gradually being introduced to the troop, including his father, Rafiki.

He shows a lot interest in the baby especially did at first. Now he doesn’t come over and touch him or anything, but he sits close, he definitely knows that’s his baby.

The keepers hope that by the time he is a year old and no longer accustomed to nursing, he will form a bond with one of the more experienced female gorillas. She would be his adopted mom through adolescence.

Wumundi will likely stay with the troop until he is 5 or 6 years old. Then he may pose a challenge to his father Rifiki, and have to be moved to another zoo. Until then, Wumnundi and his keepers are a popular exhibit.

You know just people watching you do everything, I mean they watch you sleep, they watch you crawl around with them. And, I don’t know, it can be nerve-wracking sometimes. You know, people try to get your attention, and you know they will knock on the glass, and that’s I guess how the gorillas probably feel too.

Little Wumnudi has the undivided attention of a group of humans who know a bit about what it’s like to be an ape.