“Dinah”, a young female gorilla kept at the Bronx Zoo in 1914. From the Zoological Society Bulletin.

Frustrated by the failure of gorillas to thrive in captivity, in 1914 the Bronx Zoo’s director William Hornaday lamented “There is not the slightest reason to hope that an adult gorilla, either male or female, ever will be seen living in a zoological park or garden.” Whereas wild adult gorillas were “savage” and “implacable” beasts which could not be captured (a photo of a sculpture included in Hornaday’s article depicts a gorilla strangling one man, brandishing another about with its other arm, and standing on the body of a third), young gorillas were fragile animals that did not last long