Gentle giants of Africa
Copyright 2000 New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad
December 17, 2000
GORILLAS are the largest and most powerful apes. Often portrayed as being giant-like and fierce (thanks to movies like King Kong and Congo), the gorilla is terribly misunderstood. Underneath the big build and imposing exterior, they are actually gentle, shy and affectionate animals.
Home stretches from the forests of equatorial Africa - the western lowlands near the coast of Cameroon to Uganda and the central highlands of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
There are three distinct types of gorilla - the western lowland gorilla (found in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Congo and Equatorial Guinea), the eastern lowland gorilla (found in Eastern Zaire) and the mountain gorilla (found in the mountainous regions of Zaire, Rwanda and Uganda).
Gorillas are big, stocky creatures with a massive head and bulging forehead. They have a short trunk, longer arms than legs and they use all four limbs to move around, curling up their fingers and walking on the soles of their feet.
They are rarely bipedal (walk on two legs) and only do so when they are beating their chest, observing something or when they are trying to reach for an object.
Adult male gorillas are larger than their female counterparts. The height of a male gorilla averages at approximately 1.7 metres and their weight at 180 kg. The female meanwhile have the average height of 1.4 metres and weigh 90 kg.
Gorillas are dark skinned with reddish brown to nearly black, coarse hair. Male gorillas also share the human problem of ageing by greying! Males develop a saddle of grey hairs across their backs, rendering them the name of silverback.
Gorillas are characterised by their distinctive facial features of a short hairless muzzle, a flat nose, flaring nostrils, small ears and eyes and strong jaws.
They depend on their hearing, rather than their eyesight when they move through dense vegetation. As they are nearly invisible to each other while feeding, they use specific sounds to communicate with their own kind.
A deep belch that rises from the thick of the forest suggests a very satisfied and full gorilla! When a gorilla makes a hooting sound, it immediately alerts the others in the band of impending danger. Their eyesight is used to identify food and to spot movement in the forest.
Gorillas have a strong sense of smell that easily picks up strange odours like that of human beings and other unknown gorillas.
These creatures are actually quite sociable and accommodating and normally travel in bands of five to 15. A typical band comprises a silverback, one or two subdominant males, several mature females and some young.
Most of the young males are often driven out and they subsequently form little bands of their own.
A silverback that is challenged and defeated by another male gorilla is condemned to a solitary and lonely life. It may try and lure other mature female gorillas to keep it company in its old age.
As night falls after a long day of foraging for food, gorillas would make temporary sleeping arrangements usually at the base of trees.
Older gorillas much prefer the view from ground level to that offered up in the trees! Some female and young gorillas may fashion a bed made of small branches and leaves on the top of the trees. They will also be quite game to climbing a sturdy tree, especially if it is fruiting.
Gorillas are primarily vegetarian, with the western lowland gorillas consuming more fruit than the other subspecies.
They are choosy eaters and often select their diet from fruits, stems, shoots, flowers, leaves and bark from over 200 species of plants.
Their careful selection of food ensures that they eat a balanced diet of low fat, high protein and fibre fill. Gorillas rarely need a drink of water as their dietary requirements are met by the succulent food they eat.
They also don't hunt or feed on other animals apart from invertebrates like ants and termites.
Gorillas aren't picky breeders! They are quite happy to breed throughout the year. Females are only allowed to breed with the silverback in the band, and they usually conceive for the first time when between the ages of 10 and 11. Gestation lasts for about 258 days.
Like human babies, newborn gorillas are completely dependent on their mother for care. For the first few months, they are clutched to her belly and only begin to ride on her back upon reaching 16 weeks.
Crawling comes early at nine weeks; by the time they are 35 weeks, they are able to walk. They are only weaned when they are about two years old.
Research has shown that gorillas have the capacity for elaborate learning. Some gorillas have in fact successfully learned sign language and been able to communicate with people using simple sentences.
Gorillas are known to be more interested in problem solving and have greater memory retention power than their relative, the chimpanzee.
Gorillas are feared to be in danger of extinction because of all the poaching and encroachment on their habitat.
Natives often hunt them for their meat as well as their body parts. With the explosion of the human population in some African countries, they are also fast losing their homes.
More land is being reclaimed for shelter, agriculture and logging, rendering them homeless.
The mountain gorilla in particular is one of the most endangered animals in the world. In the 1970s, conservation efforts for the gorilla began in earnest. An international consortium set up the Mountain Gorilla Project, encouraging tourism to Rwanda and educating locals about mountain gorillas.
So successful was this campaign that gorilla tourism' was at one point the third largest foreign revenue earner.
The Civil War of the 1990s put paid to the effort of the last twenty years. The mountain gorillas and human beings became victims of this nasty and tragic war.
Apart from the lives lost, about 750,000 people became refugees, living on the borders of gorilla reserves. The number of tourists coming to see the mountain gorillas dwindled, along with the much-needed foreign currency.
The future of the mountain gorilla is still uncertain and much depends on the political situation in Rwanda.
Statistics show that there are only about 100,000 western lowland gorillas roaming in the wild, 2,500 eastern lowland gorillas and a mere 600 mountain gorillas.