Gorilla & Humans Similarities | What do you know about Gorilla?

GORILLA

Gorillas are ground-dwelling herbivorous apes, which inhabit the forest of central Africa. Ranging states are Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and Nigeria. They are largest living primates; gorillas are stocky animals with broad chests and shoulder, large hands, and forearms that are much shorter than the upper arm. The face is black and hairless, with small eyes that are close together and large, prominent nostril. Adult males weigh up to 200 kilogram, with females around half of this size. They can reach a height of 1.2-1.7 meters when standing on feet.

Gorillas live in the lowland tropical rain forests of central Africa, although some of the subspecies of gorilla are found in mountain rain forest (between 1500 to 3500 meters) and in bamboo forest (between 2500 to 3500 meters). They can form stable family groups in which the dominant male keeps his position for years. Group size is usually 5-10 individuals, but can vary from 2 to over 50 members. Female gorilla leaves their group at maturity to join other group or single males. Females become sexually mature at 7-8 years old, but don’t start to breed until several years later. Males mature later than females, with few breeding before the age of 15 years. The female give birth to only one baby every four to six years, and only three or four over her entire lifetime. The gestation period of gorilla is about 8.5 months. This low rate of reproduction makes it difficult for gorillas to recover from population declines.

Gorillas are mainly herbivorous or vegetarian and eat stems, bamboo shoots, vines, and variety of fruits, supplemented with bark and invertebrates. Western lowland gorillas have been known to break open termite nests and feed on the larvae.

SUBSPECIES OF GORILLA

There are four subspecies of gorillas-

• The eastern lowland or Grauer’s gorilla
• The mountain gorilla
• The western lowland gorilla
• The Cross River gorilla

All four subspecies are either Endangered or Critically Endangered, threatened by hunting for bush meat, wild trade, infectious disease and habitat loss.

POPULATION

Many gorilla populations have declined or completely disappeared over the past few decades.

•  Mountain gorillas are critically endangered species. Fewer than 900 species of mountain gorillas are remaining.
•  Eastern lowland gorillas are endangered species. Only 5000 gorillas are remaining.
• Western lowland gorillas are critically endangered species. Fewer than 100,000 gorillas are remaining.
• Cross River gorillas are also critically endangered species. The total population of cross river gorillas is only 300.

THREATS

Gorillas are threatened by habitat loss due to increasing human population and decreasing number of forest. Poaching of them for the bush meat trade and disease like Ebola. Mountain gorillas are affected by climate change. Deforestation, extraction industries and lack of legal habitat protection are main cause of threat.

HOW WE CAN HELP

We can help gorillas by visit the place where gorillas live. Money earned through gorilla tourism contributes significantly to the conservation of the species-providing funds for conservation projects. We can also donate on the various conservation sites. Arrest the poachers and punish hard to them. One of the most effective ways to help free living gorillas is by learning more about them and helping others understand that all gorillas are smart, sensitive, and can be gentle like Koko and Michael.

Koko is the best known gorilla in the world because of her sign language and artistic abilities, her relationship with kittens.

HUMANS AND GORILLA

Gorillas display many human-like behaviors and emotion, such as laughter and sadness. They share 98.3% of their genetic code with humans, making them our closest cousins after bonobos and chimpanzees. They even make their own tools to help them survive in the forest. They have human-like hands and small eyes set into hairless faces.

PROTECTION

There are various organization are working to protect the gorillas. They have worked with officials in Nigeria and Cameroon to establish a protected area for the gorilla that spans the border between the two nations. The organizations have established ranger posts, provided field and communication equipment for anti-poaching staff. They established a system to monitor the gorilla population.

•         Stopping the illegal trade in gorilla products.
•          Increasing support for gorilla conservation.
•      Improving the effectiveness of protected areas.

STOP DEFORESTATION, EVEN WE ARE NOT SURVIVE WITHOUT TREES