When Is National Gorilla Day: Gorillas live in bamboo and mountain woods at high elevations, often above 4,000 meters. Their main food sources are leaves, twigs, and stems. In honor of World Gorilla Day, we invite you to learn more about this highly endangered species and bring attention to their urgent need for help. Supporting #WorldGorillaDay is easy and fun in four ways: learn more about this fascinating species, make a bright gorilla mask, buy one of our eye-catching gorilla badges, or all three.
World Gorilla Day
Gorillas will be celebrated at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 23 and 24. World Gorilla Day is September 24, and we’ll be celebrating all weekend long. Learn about the amazing world of gorillas and how they are cared for, and enter to win a one-of-a-kind chance to see a training session with the gorillas and their dedicated care workers! Go to Gorilla World on September 23 and 24!
Our efforts to protect wildlife are mainly focused on the western lowland gorilla, which is extremely endangered. The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden has been helping the Republic of Congo’s efforts to protect wild western lowland gorillas for more than 20 years. Gorillas are in danger from zoonotic diseases, hunting, and people coming too close to their homes. It is thought that about 2,000 gorillas are killed every year.
In the past twenty years, the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden has done a lot to protect and study western lowland gorillas. The Mbeli Bai Study in the Republic of Congo’s Nouabale-Ndoki National Park is also something we help with. This project has been studying lowland gorillas in the western area for the longest time. A lot of fieldwork has been done to learn more about their behavior and social interactions.
Please help us keep working to improve the situation for western lowland gorillas in the wild. Your visit to the Cincinnati Zoo on September 23 and 24 will not only honor these amazing animals but will also help with important studies being done to make sure they can survive in the wild.
Massive Study Across Western Equatorial Africa Finds More Gorillas and Chimpanzees Than Expected
The researchers who wrote the study say that the number of gorillas and chimpanzees in the study’s areas is higher than what was thought before by about 360,000 gorillas and about 130,000 chimps. The chimp estimate is about tenths higher than the earlier estimate, and the gorilla estimate is more than a third higher. These new numbers mostly come from better survey methods, new information from places that weren’t part of the old range-wide estimates, and population predictions made in the areas between survey sites.
It’s good to know that hundreds of thousands of gorillas and chimps still live in the forests of Western Equatorial Africa, but it’s also scary that a lot of these primates don’t live in protected areas. This means they are more likely to get sick, be poached, or lose their homes.
The study’s results will help shape national and regional management plans that focus on protecting habitats, stopping poaching, and limiting the damage that growth does to great apes and other animals. The paper’s lead author, Samantha Strindberg, says, “It’s great news that the forests of Western Equatorial Africa still contain hundreds of thousands of gorillas and chimpanzees, but we’re also concerned that so many of these primates are outside of protected areas and vulnerable to poachers, disease, and habitat degradation and loss.”
Superhighway Rerouted
WCS is grateful that the government of Cross River State in Nigeria changed the route of a planned expressway to protect the highly endangered Cross River gorillas. The route picked shows a desire to protect the country’s amazing variety of plants and animals. The government did the right thing by listening to the Ekuri Community and other groups that were worried about how the planned road might affect sensitive areas.
Finally, we want to thank the more than 135,000 people who signed a letter in favor of moving the highway. We also want to thank everyone who attended the many public and private talks with Nigeria’s federal and state governments and the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, DC. Their strong global voice has been very important in protecting wildlife and natural areas.
The planned 160-mile superhighway route, which had a buffer zone 12 miles wide, was very dangerous for the Cross River rainforest. The Cross River ape, which is very rare, would have died out because of this. The decision to change the route was made to show a stronger dedication to conservation and to show how global activism and community participation can help protect endangered species and their vital ecosystems.
Half of Western Lowland Gorillas May Vanish by 2040
Meeting my first gorilla in 1988 was a memorable experience. The ape then let out a loud cry and charged several times in a thirty-minute period that seemed to last forever. Tutin told the group back at camp, “See? Nothing happened.”
Caroline Tutin, who runs the research station, gave good advice: “If charged, stand, avoid eye contact, stay calm, and pretend to eat leaves until the silverback (adult male) is convinced you are a harmless, herbivorous visitor to his home.”
In Lopé National Park in Gabon, we saw a family of western lowland gorillas for the first time this great week. While the adults were hitting their chests, one of the young gorillas tried to copy them, but he wasn’t quite ready to make the unique pok-pok-pok-pok sound yet.
Why Hope Remains for the World’s Largest Gorillas
After the slaughter in Rwanda in 1994, hundreds of thousands of people fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). There, they got caught up in a civil war that killed about five million people over the next seven years. Besides the terrible deaths of people, the fight had a big negative effect on the plants and animals of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It led to more destruction, chaos, and the illegal trade in bushmeat.
The three groups we were a part of started a study in 2011 to find out how these events affected the Grauer’s gorilla, which is the world’s largest ape. What they found was shocking: a huge drop in numbers was caused by illegal hunts, civil unrest, and mining that damaged their habitat.
This is one of only four subspecies of gorilla, and our study shows that its population has dropped very sharply, from about 17,000 in 1995 to just 3,800 now—a loss of about 80%. The bigger Grauer’s gorillas, which weigh more than 400 pounds, are related to the bigger mountain gorillas. Unlike its relatives that live in the volcanic area shared by the DRC, Uganda, and Rwanda, this type can only be found in remote, unstable forests in the eastern DRC.
What day is World gorilla Day?
September 24th
Ahead of World Gorilla Day on September 24th, helps us raise awareness by uploading and sharing the social media pictures below.
Gorillas are the biggest primates and can weigh up to 440 pounds. However, climate change and human touch are putting them in danger, and their numbers are dropping quickly. The number of mountain gorillas dropped to about 620 in 1989, which was a big drop from earlier figures. On World Gorilla Day, people from all over the world may come together to honor gorillas and, more importantly, to take strong steps to protect them in their native habitats.
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund runs the Karisoke Research Center. In 2017, it was its 50th anniversary, and the fund also created World Gorilla Day. Dian Fossey started Karisoke, which is Africa’s longest-running gorilla field study site. Its mission is to protect, research, and study gorillas and their surroundings. Many people and groups are working to protect gorillas, but for it to really work, the public will need to learn more about it and spend more.
Why do we celebrate gorilla Day?
In 1989, only about 620 mountain gorillas remained, an order of magnitude lower than historic population estimates. To commemorate these apes, World Gorilla Day began in 2017 and is celebrated every September 24.
On the occasion of Dr. Dian Fossey’s important work on mountain gorillas in Rwanda, people celebrate World Gorilla Day. For mountain gorillas, the work of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International has kept them from being as severely endangered as some other subspecies. Instead, they are listed as endangered.
The group’s research and funding have been very important in keeping mountain gorillas from becoming extremely endangered, which shows how important it is for everyone to work together. Zoological Park Atlanta is glad to work with this great group, which does a lot to improve the health of gorilla populations.
Gorillas come in two main types and subspecies: Grauer’s gorillas and Cross River gorillas. Mountain gorillas and western lowland gorillas are the fifth type. Three of these gorilla species are in danger of going extinct in the wild because they are considered to be “extremely endangered.” Many things are putting gorillas in great danger, but forest loss is one of the biggest ones. The danger is raised by the mineral coltan, which is found in gorilla areas. Colotan is an important part of keeping cell phone batteries from getting too hot. Gorilla numbers and their habitat are in great danger because of coltan mining in their area.
Recycling cell phones is a great way to help gorillas. By recycling more, people can help save gorilla habitat, which means more healthy gorilla habitat.
Is gorilla in danger?
The commercial trade in bushmeat, which occurs throughout west and central Africa, is today the biggest threat to gorillas. Apes are being killed to primarily to supply high-end demand for meat in urban centers, where the consumption of ape meat is considered to be prestigious amongst the wealthy elite.
In almost every country in the Congo Basin, it is illegal to kill, trade, or eat gorillas or other animals. It’s hard to say how many gorillas are stolen because they are often killed and eaten right away, or their meat is smoked and then sold in towns. Gorillas are easy targets for shooters, even though they only make up a small part of the animals killed for bushmeat.
A lot of shooters like gorillas because they give hunters a lot of meat that they can sell. Because gorillas have slow reproduction, even light hunting can cause the population to drop, and it might take several generations to get it back up.
Gorillas can get hurt or killed by snares and traps meant for antelopes and other animals that live in the woods. Gorillas are also respected as pets or as hunting prizes, and people want to use their body parts for magic and medicine. Even more forests are being cut down by highways, industrial logging, and small-scale farming, making it harder for gorillas to live.
When was the first gorilla?
The last common ancestor of humans and gorillas might have lived at least 2 million years earlier than previously thought. Fossilized teeth of the earliest gorilla ever discovered, dating to 10 million years ago, have been found in Africa, say researchers.
As explained on page 921 of this issue, Chororapithecus abyssinicus, a new species from Ethiopia, is important because it fills in a big hole in the fossil record. Nine teeth from at least three members of the species were found in the desert scrubland of Afar, which is about 170 kilometers east of Addis Abeba. This is what experts from Ethiopia and Japan concluded. Gen Suwa, who led the study and worked at the University of Tokyo Museum in Japan, said that the teeth “are collectively indistinguishable from modern gorilla subspecies” in terms of their size, shape, and the internal structure that scans showed.
The team thinks that gorillas split off from the human lineage “greater than 10 to 11 million years ago.” This is different from what was thought before (S. Kumar et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 102, 18842-18847; 2005), which said that gorillas split off from humans about 8 million years ago. Suwa says that the teeth seem to be changing how they work, which means that they can cut through plant-based food, which is something that gorillas are known for.
Now that this has been found, scientists and geneticists may argue about when the hominin line split from chimps, which is thought to have happened around 6 million years ago. “Chororapithecus abyssinicus suggests, once again, that Africa was the place of origin of both humans and modern African apes,” Suwa says, disagreeing with some scientists who think the origin was in Eurasia.
Are gorillas vegetarian?
Gorillas stick to a mainly vegetarian diet, feeding on stems, bamboo shoots and fruits. Western lowland gorillas, however, also have an appetite for termites and ants, and break open termite nests to eat the larvae.
The largest living monkey species is the gorilla, which lives in central and eastern Africa. Their social structure is very advanced, and they often show human-like traits and feelings, like laughter and sadness. Gorillas are still in danger from poaching, disease, and habitat loss, but WWF is working hard to create more protected places to keep populations healthy.
Family groups of up to 40 gorillas explore their surroundings together. Someone with a lot of power takes charge and stays in charge for a long time. These sweet and friendly monkeys are our third-closest relatives after chimps and bonobos, with 98.3% DNA similarity to human DNA. The four types of gorillas are in danger because of poaching, diseases like Ebola, and habitat loss; most of them don’t live in protected areas. WWF wants to create more safe places for gorillas to live. Their work in the Congo is one example.
World Gorilla Day is September 24th! The gorilla population is thought to be between 100,000 and 200,000 people, making it one of the most endangered primate species. The equatorial African apes that make up this species are incredibly close to humans in how they feel and what they do. They share 98.3% of our DNA code, which is pretty cool. People, chimps, and bonobos all come from a shared ape-like ancestor. Unfortunately, a female gorilla can only have three or four kids in her whole life. This is why gorillas are considered an endangered species. Because of this, the number of gorillas has been going down for decades.
