What are the Bobo the Gorilla Tapes?

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, with a small cassette tape deck, I recorded a series of audio interviews with key people in Bobo's life, Bill and Jean Lowman, who had raised Bobo at home (Ray Lowman had passed away), and Bobo's last keeper at Woodland Park Zoo, Pat Pichette.

The tapes were originally intended as background for a book about Bobo, but I was unable to complete the project at the time and tapes and other research material went into storage.  During a recent clear-out of my storage unit I rediscovered the tapes, listened to them, and realized that I had in the tapes a rare historic archive about Bobo, particularly as all of the people I had interviewed have since passed on.

Some of the stories on these tapes, told by the people who were there, have never been made public, including startling revelations by Bobo's keeper about his death and the events which led up to it, something which has always held an element of mystery.

I am now working on turning the tapes into a digital audiobook, but in order to complete the process of digitization, audio cleanup, editing, and publishing, I need to raise enough funds to do all of the above.

If you're a fan of Bobo, I hope you'll help by donating here, using the PayPal donate button.  Along with the audiobook, which will be offered through Open Book Audio when it is complete, clips of the tapes will also be donated to the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, to be included in MOHAI's Bobo exhibit.