GORILLAS

SILVERBACK MALE

Gorillas are man’s closest relatives. The Gorilla became known as aggressive and ferocious but it is completely unfounded.  He is the largest primate. The gorilla is a vegetarian and of gently nature.

It is thought that gorillas at their beginning lived in trees but today only the younger members are climbing and the adult stay on the ground because they are too heavy. Mother Nature provided them with strong grasping fingers and thumb for gripping. Their arms are very strong and designed for swinging from trees to trees. It also has, like man, a good binocular vision for judging distances.  Although very well equipped for climbing trees it is only the young ones which climb.

The adult stay on the ground and walk on its feet and pivoting on his knuckles of its hands.

The colour of its fur can vary. The western lowland gorilla living in the Cameron, Central ~African Republic, Gabon, Congo and Equatorial Africa has a brown-greycoat. The well known male silversaddle extends to their rump and thighs.

WESTERN GORILLAS

The eastern lowland gorilla living in easy Zaire in the forests of Lualaba, or Upper Congo River, to the foothills, has a black coat. The male silver saddle is smaller but its chest is larger and so are his jaws and teeth.

LOWLAND GORILLAS

The mountain gorillas are living in Zaire, Rwanda and Uganda at an altitude of 1650-3790m. They are in the foothills of the Virunga volcanoes and mountains bordering Lake Kivu.  It is very much like the eastern gorilla but has lager jaws, teeth, longer hairs, especially on the arms

It mainly eats leaves and stems and there is plentiful in his habitat but they have to eat huge amount.  They live in family groups and move slowly about in their territory which can range from 5 to 30sqkm. They never stay a long time and it gives the plants to grow again. They feed in the mornings and afternoons. Midday they take a rest and at night they make nests from leaves and branches and sleep in it.

They eat a wide range of vegetation but prefer plants with stringy stems. They are also fussy eaters like all primates. It had been seen they pull their food apart and if there are any discolouring they throw it away. 

FAMILY

It is the adult silver back which is the centre of the family group.  He has a favourite female and she is second in command.  The rest of the family has to establish their status in the group.

Other males might be challenging the dominate male of the group for his harem but he mostly get sent off by showing their teeth, chest beating and hooting. Sometimes young males chases away the old dominate male. The new male will kill all the babies fathered by the old male and start mating with the females to establish his own family.

 Baby gorilla starts to crawl at the age of nine weeks. Till such time it clings to his mother belly. It is weaned at an about three and half years of age, and then the mother starts mating again. However, the baby is still not able to fend for itself and half of the babies die. An incoming male sometimes kill the baby which is not his own and therefore the female makes sure to chose a very strong male who is able to defend his family.

The female is not sexually mature until it is seven or eight years old but only starts breeding when it is ten years old.  The male reaches adult hood at the age of 15-20 years old.

GORILLAS AND MAN

Chimpanzee and Gorillas are the closest to man.  Man has no tail and walks upright.  Both man and gorilla are intelligent. The similarity is also in the bone, muscles and internal organs. The difference is that the gorillas have shorter toes and longer arms. His big toes are thumb-like.

The gorilla received a name for being fierce but it was due to the earlier explorers to make out they had great courage.  Therefore for many years it was believed that the gorilla was dangerous. It was discovered that the male gorilla only attacks when he feels his family group is threatened and with that his breeding rights.

Thousands of tourist travel to Rwanda to watch gorillas and are within a few metres from them. Nobody ever has been attacked.

CONSERVATION

Mountains gorillas are in great danger of extinction. The main reason is that the forests round the Virunga volcanoes were cleared for agricultural use.  It is thought that there are only 350 gorillas left in the wild. In spite of foothills of Virunga Mountains have been declared a National Park and the gorillas are a declared a protective animals a terrible trade in skulls and severed hands continues. They are sold on to tourists as ‘souvenirs’. There again if the tourists wouldn’t be so pathetic as to buy it the natives would not kill them. It is again the demand which causes the damage.

At first the poachers kills the male with a spear. Then they kill the mother and take the babies for selling them. The buyer couldn’t care less if the young gorilla dies soon after mostly from the wrong food and emotional shock.  All this is a disgraceful way to behave and to destroy such magnificent animals.

The lowland gorillas are 9,000 – 10,000 are in the wild and the eastern gorillas are assumed to be 4,000 but nevertheless they also suffer of loss of habitation and illegal hunting.