A baby gorilla being raised temporarily by human surrogate parents is doing well _ learning to roll over, sit up and getting ready to walk on all fours. 
 
 Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden primate specialists say "Gladys" is in good health, developing and growing quickly with loving care from 10 humans imitating a gorilla mom's behavior. 
 
 This week she began supporting herself on all fours. 
 
 "The next step, she'll be able to walk around by herself," said Ron Evans, primate team leader. 
 
 Gladys also is teething and has begun eating some cooked foods, such as sweet potatoes and carrots, besides being bottle-fed five times a day. 
 
 "She's at the age now where she really starts growing by leaps and bounds," Evans said. 
 
 She came to Cincinnati last month from Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas, after she was born there Jan. 29 to a first-time mother who showed little maternal instinct. It was decided to move her to Cincinnati's zoo because of its extensive experience in raising gorilla babies and its availability of experienced gorilla mothers. 
 
 Human surrogates dress in black, wear furry vests and kneepads and make gorilla sounds to help prepare Gladys for the transition to a real gorilla family. They have been showing her to other gorillas and letting them touch her. 
 
 The Cincinnati Enquirer ( http://cin.ci/WYwKZK) reports that zoo specialists think she will be ready within a few months, and there are four potential adoptive moms among their gorillas. 
 
 "The gorillas have to decide who this baby's mom is going to be," Evans said. 
 
 "That will be the day that all this hard work pays off," said primate keeper Ashley O'Connell, crawling around with the 9-pound gorilla riding on her back. 
 
 O'Connell just had her own first child five months ago. 
 
 "I feel like I'm the mother of two right now," she said. "If I have to be away from my own child, this is where I want to be." 
 
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 Information from: The Cincinnati Enquirer, http://www.enquirer.com ||||| CLOSE How a 3-year-old boy dropped into the Gorilla World exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. The Enquirer/Mike Nyerges 
 
 Jack Hanna attends Safe Kids Day at Smashbox Studios on April 24, 2016 in Culver City, Calif. (Photo: Jason LaVeris, FilmMagic) 
 
 Celebrity zookeeper Jack Hanna, a Knoxville native and director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, defended the actions of officials at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens after they shot to death a critically endangered gorilla out of concern for a 4-year-old boy who got into the animal's enclosure Saturday afternoon. 
 
 However, Hanna wasn't ready to defend the mother of the child who slipped away from her supervision. 
 
 Speaking to"CBS This Morning on Monday Hanna said, "I agree 1,000 %" with the Cincinnati Zoo's officials to take out the gorilla before he harmed the unnamed child who had gone under a railing, through wires and over a wall before falling 10-15 feet into a moat in the gorilla's enclosure. 
 
 The 17-year-old, 450-pound western lowland gorilla named Harambe, grabbed the boy and pulled him through the water, keeping the child close as onlookers screamed. The boy was treated at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and later released, and his family says he is doing fine. 
 
 A widely circulated video of the event has left many wondering if lethal force was necessary; some have interpreted the gorilla's actions as more protective than dangerous. 
 
 Hanna has no doubts, however: "They made the correct decision," he told CBS, adding that a shot from a tranquilizer gun might take 5 to 10 minutes to take effect, and it was clear to Hanna that Harambe was already alarmed by the situation and a tranquilizer shot would have aggravated him further. 
 
 "A human being is alive today because of the decision the Cincinnati Zoo made," he said. 
 
 Hanna also defended the safety of zoos in general: "We'd be at the very top of safety (compared to other types of attractions)," however, "We can only do so much (to assure safety) … What do we do? … We can't protect everything all the time." 
 
 Then as a warning to parents, Hanna said, "You always have to watch children." 
 
 About the mother of the boy, he said, "I guess maybe she was doing something else (instead of keeping an eye on her son). I don't know. I wasn't there." 
 
 In an earlier statement, Cincinnati Zoo director Thane Maynard attempted to justify the zoo's actions. "It could have been very bad," he said. 
 
 Many of those following the story online think the killing of Harambe was already "very bad," and a petition, called Justice For Harambe, had already logged more than 210,000 supporters as of dinner time Monday. 
 
 Hanna, 69, is one of the world's most celebrated zookeepers. After growing up in Knoxville, he served as the general curator of the Municipal Zoo in Knoxville in the early 1970s, he was part-owner of Pet Kingdom on Kingston Pike, and he kept a menagerie of wild animals at his Cedar Bluff Road home that he called "Hanna's Ark." 
 
 In July of 1972, a lioness at his home, Daisy, mauled a three-year-old boy who put his hand through a fence. The lioness severed the boy's arm just above the elbow. 
 
 Hanna and his family moved to Florida in the mid-1970s, and he took a job with the Central Florida Zoo in Sanford. He eventually took a position at the Columbus Zoo in 1978. 
 
 Nicknamed "Jungle Jack," the charismatic Hanna has made many media appearances over the decades — notably on talk shows hosted by Johnny Carson and David Letterman — and hosted several of his own syndicated shows, including "Jack Hanna's Into the Wild" and "Jack Hanna's Wild Countdown." 
 
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– Meet the new zoo superstar: Gladys the baby gorilla. When the 8-week-old western lowland gorilla's mother seemed uninterested in raising her, zookeepers took matters into their own hands, reports AP. Gladys was sent from her home zoo in Texas to the Cincinnati Zoo, where the staff has extensive experience raising gorillas. There, a team of 10 loving humans has been raising Gladys as an attentive gorilla mom would, wearing furry vests and kneepads and making gorilla sounds so she'll be prepared to eventually transition to a surrogate family of actual gorillas. "She's at the age now where she really starts growing by leaps and bounds," the zoo's primate leader tells the Cincinnati Enquirer. She's also mimicking gorilla behavior, like sleeping while clinging to zookeepers' backs. The human upbringing angle is getting Gladys plenty of attention—Good Morning America aired a piece on her today—and the Enquirer predicts her star will keep rising. Gladys is "a real charmer," says the story. "That little girl makes great eye contact."