Como Zoo Opens $11 Million Home for 7 Gorillas

ST. PAUL (AP) - The Como Park Zoo is opening a new $11 million home for its seven gorillas.

The new outdoor primate yard is almost three times the size of the old enclosure once occupied by just a pair of gorillas at the St. Paul zoo.

Zoo officials hope it's an ideal place to raise a gorilla family. One of their males is now living with three females, so they hope to have some little gorillas running around in a couple years.

The Gorilla Forest is the newest of a series of high-profile expansions for a zoo that started as a fenced pasture with three deer in 1897. Since 2006, Como Zoo has added a Tropical Encounters exhibit and a $5 million Polar Bear Odyssey.