- The video shows the tender moment a chimpanzee mom is reunited with her baby.
- The footage shows the mother chimp, Mahale, picking up and embracing her male baby, Kucheza.
An emotional video captured the moment a mother chimpanzee was reunited with her baby after being separated from it for two days following an emergency C-section operation at a zoo in Kansas.
The video from Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita shows mother Mahale 48 hours after her C-section. Her baby, Kucheza, had to stay in the hospital for two days due to complications, which led to an emotional reunion for the mother and baby.
Mahale tentatively approaches her baby boy, who is swaddled in a blanket. Once the little one extends an arm, Mahale's motherly instincts spring into action, and she quickly scoops up her baby and hugs him lovingly to her chest.
Zoo communication director Jennica King told Fox News that the video is "one of the most powerful things I've ever seen. She knows it's her baby laying there. The baby is being very still. She's looking at it like, 'What's going on?' And once he moves, you see the relief and the love and just, oh my gosh, it's just amazing."
In the background, you can hear staff getting emotional at the tender scene, saying "good job, mama" and cooing.
"Mahale is an exceptional mother, and it's clear how much she loves her baby," Sedgwick Zoo said. Kucheza, meaning 'play' in Swahili, was Mahale's third baby.
On their Facebook page, the zoo said that the two have been inseparable since Mahale first picked up her baby and that they are in "IN LOVE."