Bye-Bye Babec

It's a sad day for animal lovers in Alabama. Babec, the lowland gorilla at the Birmingham Zoo, has died from heart disease.

Babec was 28, and he made national news in 2004 when he had a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted. Experts said Babec contributed greatly to our understanding of gorillas. Male gorillas tend to develop heart problems in captivity, and scientists are not sure why.

We considered Babec a friend here at Legal Schnauzer. We wrote about him several times and noted that he almost certainly had a keener legal mind than some of the dufuses who serve as judges in Alabama. I was only semi kidding about that.

We also made the mistake of referring to Babec as "she." Just click on the link at this post, and you can clearly see that Babec was a truly manly dude.

The big fella will be missed.