Fifi: Si! Bobo? No!

All of Seattle is distressed about Bobo. He is the 560-lb. star of Woodland Park zoo, just turned 13, in the prime of life. He is one of the handsomest, healthiest gorillas in captivity. But Bobo has a problem: he doesn't like girl gorillas.

Eight years ago, Seattle was so proud of Bobo that everyone from schoolchildren to tycoons chipped in to raise $4,000 to buy him a suitable bride. They settled for a dainty (350 lbs.), nubile (aged 11) enchantress, whose main aim in life is to reproduce. Bobo will hardly look at her.

It's not that he's rundown. Each day Bobo gets a massive dose of vitamin E, swigs pure wheat-germ oil, eight raw egg yolks, a jigger of thiamine and a 20-mg. jolt of male hormones. Each day also brings more letters, aphrodisiac recipes and snide phone calls from citizens who don't like what Bobo is doing to their city's image. Many Seattleites volunteer remedies: "Send Fifi away on a separate vacation," wrote one woman. "It works for me every time. Bobo will love her when she comes back." A man who lives on Puget Sound is so enthusiastic about his own regeneration that he has offered to gather and deliver fresh oysters daily. Zoo Director Frank Vincenzi thinks that a pornographic movie might give Bobo some ideas. Trouble is, no blue film ever made was aimed at the genuine simian market. Fifi needs no such jogging. OB the contrary. Her lonely desperation has driven her to amorous lengths that are enough to make a gorilla blush.

Woodland Park authorities think that Bobo's trouble may arise from an overprotected childhood. He was brought up by a couple like a human baby. He slept in a ribboned bassinet, ate in a high chair, sat on a potty, played pat-a-cake, and wore little-boy suits. When he became too obstreperous and was sold to the zoo at the age of 2 1/2, he was so miserable with his clothes off, and so afraid of the other animals, that his foster mother came and slept in a cot by his side every night for three weeks.

Dr. Kenneth Binkley, the zoo veterinarian, is pessimistic. His diagnosis: "Single male primates raised from babyhood in human homes are highly neurotic. Bobo has human inhibitions--he simply will not make an exhibition of himself in public."

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