PORTLAND — The Oregon Zoo will be name its 2013 Zoo Mother of the Year next week, and the public is invited to help choose the winner. Keepers have narrowed the field to three top-notch moms and are asking people to vote for their favorite on the zoo’s website: www.oregonzoo.org.
This year’s finalists are a De Brazza’s monkey named Brooke, a North American river otter named Tilly and an Asian elephant named Rose-Tu. Online votes will be accepted through noon Thursday. The zoo will announce its 2013 Mother of the Year at 10:30 a.m May 10.
As voting gets under way, keepers have been debating the merits of the three zoo moms, promoting their favorite candidates, enjoying some good-natured rivalries — and, it must be said, engaging in a bit of smack talk.
Brooke, a 22-year-old De Brazza’s monkey, has been keeping her 2-month-old so close that the zoo’s animal-care staff only recently determined the baby’s gender. (It’s a boy.) “He was attached to Brooke’s belly 24/7 for about a month,” said Asaba Mukobi, the zoo’s senior primate keeper.