This is a series of diaries highlighting animal rescues around the country and noting and celebrating the work they do to help animals who have no voices but ours to speak for them. I have decided to make this a daily series because there are so many wonderful rescues out there who need human help and weekly just doesn't seem to be enough. I have long wanted to start a rescue but lack the resources or time available to do so right now so this is my attempt to do my part. I hope that these rescues will benefit from the kindness and benevolence of the community here at Daily Kos. They are amazing organizations and worthy of Kossack attention and care.
I am here, alive and all around you
I have no voice
In your trees, your air, your fields, your oceans, your world
I have no voice
I am a mother, a father, a protector, a soul
I have no voice
I can walk, crawl, sing, fear
I have no voice
You must be my voice
Cross River Gorilla Campaign - Africa
The website is here
You can donate here
HISTORY
When European explorers first entered the jungles of Africa, they were of the mindset that man was in a struggle against nature, and that all the animals they encountered were savage beasts that should be shot, stuffed and sent home as trophies.
This idea of the gorilla as a huge, violent monster was perpetuated by the 1933 film 'King Kong', which was advertised with the tag line 'Monster of Creation's Dawn Breaks Loose in Our World Today!'.
Andy Serkiss, the actor behind the CGI version of the giant ape in the 2005 remake of the film, spent time in Rwanda and at London Zoo studying how gorillas actually move and behave, and used this experience to create a more realistic version, in the original, "Kong goes around chewing people's heads off. Now we know that gorillas are herbivores" he said in an interview with National Geographic Adventure.
The early naturalists were struck, as much as the African people living alongside these apes, by how much like us gorillas are. Thomas Staughton Savage named them in 1847, after the 'gorilliai' a tribe of hairy women who were to be found along the coast of Western Africa, according to Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginian explorer who apparently travelled in the region in about 480 BCE, and who may in fact have been describing gorillas.
The people around Kagwene in Cameroon believe that gorillas are essentially human, and so eating their flesh would be tantamount to cannibalism. Since the advent of genetics, we have discovered just how similar we are to gorillas, which along with the chimpanzee are our closest living relatives.
THE GREATEST APE
Gorillas are the largest ape, with females weighing between 72 and 98kg and standing about 1500mm tall, and mature males being twice as large, weighing up to 181kg and about 1700mm in height. Life expectancy is between 30 and 40 years, although individuals in captivity have been known to reach 50 years of age.
There are two different species of gorilla, each split into two subspecies:
Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) 94,000
Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli) 250-300
Eastern Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) 3000-5000
Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) 700
Gorillas are stocky apes with large hands, and forearms much shorter than their upper arms. They have small eyes, placed close together, and large, prominent nostrils. Black hair covers the body, except for the face, ears, hands and feet. Western gorillas have a greyer coat than eastern gorillas, and often have reddish hair, particularly on the head, which in males can be a striking chestnut. Mature males have a saddle of lighter, grey hair that stretches around the back and thighs, hence their being called 'silverbacks'.
Most of what we know about the behaviour of gorillas comes from studies of the Mountain Gorilla. Studies of the other subspecies have found differences in socio-ecology. The Cross River Gorilla needs much more study before we can fully understand it.
Gorillas spend most of their time on the ground, usually walking on all fours, on the knuckles of their hands, although they can walk just on the two hind legs. They can also climb trees, and may build their nests up there. Females and infants are more likely to sleep in the trees than males. A new nest is built each day; the group usually moves on in search of fresh food supplies. Time is spent alternating between rest periods and travel or foraging. They feed on herbaceous vegetation, and fruit such as bananas, when it is available. Some gorillas have been found eating ants and termites, but these insects are rare at higher altitudes.
Vocal communication is important for gorillas, and they make a variety of calls directed at other members of their own group, or at other groups. Different noises are made during play, mating, or when a predator is spotted, for instance. The males make threatening calls and may beat their chests when encountering rival males.
Generally speaking, gorillas form groups of one dominant male, known as the silverback, with a number of breeding females, and their offspring. Occasionally there may be more than one mature male in the group, and adult males will also sometimes live alone or with other bachelor males. Young male and female gorillas sometimes leave their natal groups and join another group, or form a new one of their own. It is the silverback who holds the group together, protecting the infants against predators and attacks by other male gorillas, so if he dies the group may break up, with the females leaving to search for a new breeding group. Sometimes a subordinate male will take over instead, and in the Eastern Lowland Gorilla the females may remain as a group, waiting for a male to join them and take over leadership.
The relationship between the silverback and the females is therefore essential to keeping the group together, and they spend a lot of time in mutual grooming. Females are closer to others of the same maternal line, and may become aggressive with each other, particularly over access to the male. When there are multiple males in the group there will be a strong dominance hierarchy, although when males live together in non-breeding groups they are more amicable, and will groom and play with each other.
The silverback, as well as protecting the group from outside threats, will intervene when females become too aggressive with each other, or if an older member of the group is too rough with one of the infants. The male does not become a silverback until he is about 12 years old, but even then he will continue growing until he is 15.
Females are unlikely to mate before they are 10 years old, and then do so only every four or five years. They are unable to fall pregnant while nursing an infant, and it takes this length of time before the young gorilla is fully weaned. There is no specific mating season. The female will initiate mating, or become receptive to the male's advances every 30 days, unless she is pregnant or lactating. Pregnancy lasts for 8.5 months.
Young gorillas need a lot of care. For the first 5 months they remain in constant contact with their mother, and she will keep close to the silverback. Gradually the infant will spend more time away from its mother, and will gain the confidence to move further away from her. It will play with other members of the group, even the huge silverback, and after it has been weaned and has reached adulthood it may leave the group completely.
HABITAT LOSS
Major threats to the survival of the Cross River Gorilla are habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting, and disease. Gorillas, when caught as infants, have also been traded as pets.
There are few records of the historic abundance and distribution of gorillas in this region. A report from 1957 implies that there used to be more gorillas here, and this tallies with genetic evidence of a recent decline in population size.
As well as being home to the Cross River Gorilla, this region has a large and growing human population. Much of the forest has been lost to agriculture and pasture, as well as logging on various scales. (13) Large areas of grassland have been cleared, and are maintained, by burning in the Bemenda Highlands, at the edge of the gorilla's range. (19) Accidental bush-fires as well as intentional burning to clear ground, happen across the region, often during the dry season. These can spread rapidly through the forest, damaging large areas and affecting all sorts of animals and vegetation. These fires have caused a rapid transition from forest to savannah in recent years.
It is not just total destruction of the forest that can affect the gorillas. They are shy creatures, distrustful of humans, and can be forced out of an area that is disturbed too often, for example by logging activities nearby, or an intrusive human presence. (27)
The forest is gradually being eroded along its margins, and around the enclaved villages that exist within the Cross River and Takamanda National Parks. The Okwangwo division of the Cross River National Park is in danger of being completely bisected if this expansion continues. Outside the usual gorilla ranges, degradation of the connecting corridors, which have no legal protection, could block migration, causing the sites to become as isolated as they were once believed to be. (13)
There is typically poor road access in this region, with the enclaved villages being particularly difficult for people to travel to and from. For locals this is a major concern, particularly with the difficulty of moving out cash crops for sale, or reaching medical care. (20) By improving transport services however, the environment must suffer. As new roads are built and old ones improved, they are particularly hard-hitting, since as well as destroying habitat and being barriers to many species, they ease access into previously sheltered areas, thereby opening them up for further destruction, and making the forest more accessible for trappers, hunters and collectors of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). Logging also opens up routes which such visitors can follow deeper into the forest, and legal trappers and collectors of NTFPs open up routes for poachers.
The Cross River Gorilla is protected across its range, but isolated killings do occur. In such small populations, this can be serious. If the silverback is lost and the females have to join a new male, he may kill their infants in order to breed with them himself. (6, 11) Gorillas, here as elsewhere, are targeted not just for meat, but for their bones which are used in traditional medicine and as fetishes, and infants, if captured alive may be sold as pets.