Gorilla News

2008

Who Murdered the Virunga Gorillas?

The killers waited until dark.

On July 22 of last year unknown assailants crouched in the forest, preparing to execute a family of gorillas. Hidden on a side slope of the Mikeno volcano in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, armed with automatic weapons, the killers had hunted down the twelve-member Rugendo family, well-known among tourists and well loved by the rangers of Virunga National Park. The patriarch of the gorilla family, a 500-pound silverback named Senkwekwe, would have sensed that the assailants were near, perhaps wrinkling his wide, black nose at their unfortunate smell, but he would not have been alarmed. Senkwekwe had seen thousands of people and had come to accept their proximity as irritating but unavoidable. So habituated to humans was the Rugendo family that the gorillas would occasionally wander out of the forest into cornfields for an impromptu picnic, angering local farmers.

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Oldest gorilla in captivity turns 55 at Dallas Zoo

DALLAS (AP): A gorilla recognized as the world's oldest in captivity celebrated her 55th birthday by munching down a four-layer frozen fruit cake and banana leaf-wrapped treats.

Jenny's caretakers at the Dallas Zoo say she's having a few joint issues and her eyesight isn't what it used to be but she still looks good for an old ape.
"It's a special milestone for us,'' said Todd Bowsher, curator of the zoo's Wilds of Africa exhibit. "It signifies that we've made great strides in veterinary care, nutrition and animal husbandry.''
The International Species Information System, which maintains records on animals at 700 institutions around the world, said Jenny is the oldest gorilla in its database.

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The Downing Gorilla Forest Choir

Singing gorillas? Who has ever heard of such a thing? Not many, according to Sarah Schaefer, Ph.D. candidate from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And don't expect them to perform in front of an audience. Schaefer, who has been studying Sedgwick County Zoo's gorillas for the last six months, says gorillas vocalize the most at the end of the rest period prior to feeding and during feeding. "These vocalizations probably indicate excitement/anticipation of the food. They also vocalize during resting and feeding to keep in contact with each other and to indicate contentment."

The gorillas have a complex repertoire of sounds, ranging from the purr heard when they want to make contact or reassure each other at the end of a rest period just prior to being fed, to a rumble that may be heard when the gorillas start to eat. Other types of vocalizations include a single grunt, multiple grunt , and neigh. Schaefer uses specialized sound equipment to record the various sounds she hears while studying the gorillas. According to Schaefer, "No one has published spectrographic evidence of the rumble, purr, multiple grunts, or the neigh as of yet." A sound spectrograph, such as the one Schaefer is creating, is a graphical representation of a recorded sound that allows the measurement of the precise frequencies and durations of each sound unit.

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World's Rarest Gorilla Finds Sanctuary

The government of Cameroon - with guidance from the Wildlife Conservation Society - has created the world's first sanctuary exclusively for the Cross River gorilla, the world's rarest kind of great ape. The Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary was officially created by decree of the Prime Minister of Cameroon Ephraim Inoni and was announced via state radio.

Classified as Critically Endangered by IUCN's Red List, the Cross River gorilla is the rarest of the four subspecies of gorilla. The entire population numbers under 300 individuals across its entire range, which consists of 11 scattered sites in Cameroon and Nigeria. The Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli) is one of two subspecies of western gorilla, the other being Gorilla gorilla gorilla, the western lowland gorilla. The eastern gorilla includes the eastern lowland gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri), and the famous mountain gorillas of the Virunga Mountains and southern Uganda (Gorilla beringei beringei).

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Gorillas Mate Face-to-Face in First Photos

A pair of wild western lowland gorillas in Africa have surprised researchers by engaging in face-to-face mating, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced today.

Though the behavior had been observed before in mountain gorillas, it had never before been seen in the lowland gorilla subspeciesÑand had never before been photographed in the wild.

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2007

Gorilla Massacre Video

Photographers Michael Nichols and Brent Stirton explain the significance of the recent gorilla massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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Western Lowland Gorillas moved to the Critically Endangered status on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2007

On Wednesday, 12th of September 2007, the The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) announced their newest assessment of the Earth's plants and animals - the Red List of Threatened Species:

A reassessment of our closest relatives, the great apes, has revealed a grim picture. The Western Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) has moved from Endangered to Critically Endangered, after the discovery that the main subspecies, the Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), has been decimated by the commercial bushmeat trade and the Ebola virus. Their population has declined by more than 60% over the last 20-25 years, with about one third of the total population found in protected areas killed by the Ebola virus over the last 15 years.

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Czech zoo's gorilla birth ends in tragedy

Prague - Fans of a Prague zoo gorilla named Kamba who earned nationwide fame in a 2005 mock radio reality show were mourning Wednesday after her offspring died during birth. The 35-year-old gorilla was brought to the zoo from Cameroon in autumn 2005 when Czech Radio opened its mock reality-style show focused on the life of the zoo's gorilla family.

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Three's company on gorilla love island

It was the first small taste of freedom for Bobby the 23-year-old silverback gorilla since he was captured as a baby in Guinea and sold to an Italian circus.

He can now see the sky without bars and, from today, thousands of visitors to London Zoo can look him and his fellow great apes in the face.

Removing the gorilla cages is the biggest revamp at the zoo for 40 years and is intended to turn a visit into something more akin to a safari park experience.

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Gorilla's cheeky welcome for Prince Philip

He normally expects a degree of deference from those he encounters.

But when Prince Philip was introduced to Bobby the gorilla, it soon emerged that the ape had not been fully briefed on the finer points of etiquette.

Rather than bowing to His Royal Highness, Bobby eyed him somewhat disdainfully, shuffled around ... then pointed his bottom in his direction.

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Silverback Gorillas Eaten by Rebels

Jan. 18, 2007 - Rebels in eastern Congo have killed and eaten two silverback mountain gorillas, conservationists said Wednesday, warning they fear more of the endangered animals may have been slaughtered in the lawless region.

Only about 700 mountain gorillas remain in the world, 380 of them spread across a range of volcanic mountains straddling the borders of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda in Central Africa.

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Congo rebels kill rare ape, raising survival fears

KINSHASA, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Congolese rebels have shot and butchered a rare mountain gorilla, raising fears for a tiny population that has clung on through years of warfare in central Africa, conservationists said on Wednesday.

Just 700 mountain gorillas survive, more than half of them in Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The east of the country bore the brunt of a 1998-2003 war and humanitarian disaster that has killed some 4 million people.

"In a population this small, every individual counts -- and the loss of a trusting young silverback is tragic on many levels," Ian Redmond, chief consultant for the United Nations Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP), said in a statement.

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DRC rebels 'killing gorillas'

Nairobi - Rebel fighters in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) shot and killed a highly endangered mountain gorilla in what conservationists said on Wednesday could be a catastrophe for the species.

Rebels commanded by dissident DRC general Laurent Nkunda allegedly slaughtered the young male silverback in eastern DRC's Virunga National Park on January 5 and forced a local farmer to butcher its meat, they said.

"The killing of a gorilla is a disaster for us," the Nairobi-based Wildlife Direct group said, adding that the death of the rare animal, one of a tiny group that was used to humans, could also bode ill for tourism.

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2006

Two-thirds of Congo Basin forests could disappear

YAOUNDE, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Two-thirds of the forests in the Congo River Basin could disappear within 50 years if logging and mineral exploitation continues at current rates, environmental group WWF said in a report.

The Congo Basin, the world's second largest tropical forest after the Amazon, loses some 3.7 million acres a year to agriculture, logging, road development, oil exploitation and mining, WWF's Central African regional office (CARPO) said in a report published late on Thursday.

"Tropical forest is vanishing at a rate of 5 percent a decade, wrecking habitats and releasing 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, which is a fifth of global greenhouse emissions," CARPO director Laurent Some said in the report.

About 400 mammal species live in the Congo Basin, including the world's largest populations of lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and forest elephants, all under threat as their habitat is destroyed.

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Endangered gorillas prosper in heart of Africa

Parc National Des Volcans - Agashya and his family are among the world's 700-odd surviving mountain gorillas who live in their natural habitats in Rwanda, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Split between the Virunga volcanoes which straddle the borders of the three central African countries and Uganda's Bwindi National Park, the gorillas have actually seen their numbers increase in the last few years.

A 2003 census showed a 17 percent increase from 1989 to 380 mountain gorillas living around the Virunga volcanoes in a series of three national parks. About 320 live in Bwindi.

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Gorilla born using fertility drug

A baby gorilla has been born at a city zoo following pioneering fertility treatment that is normally only used on humans.

The tiny western lowland gorilla was born at Bristol Zoo Gardens on December 15, 2006.

The baby, who is yet to be sexed or named, has started suckling and is said to be doing well. But the birth was only possible after the mother, Salome, underwent a course of groundbreaking fertility treatment.

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Ebola Virus Killing Gorillas, Chimps in Congo

All Things Considered, December 9, 2006 - A new study confirms that the ebola virus is causing a massive die-off of gorillas and chimpanzees in Africa. Scientists differ on whether there's anything humans can do to help their closest relatives in the animal kingdom.

In the Lossi Sanctuary in the Republic of Congo, researchers had been tracking groups of gorillas for several years. Four years ago, they started to find gorilla carcasses. And over the next four months 130 of the 143 apes disappeared.

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Ebola Imperils Gorilla Species in Congo Republic

The Ebola virus killed 3,500 to 5,500 gorillas in one region of the Congo Republic from 2002 to 2005, and its continued spread, along with hunting, could wipe out the species, researchers are reporting today.

A lot of animals are dying," said Dr. Peter D. Walsh, an ecologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Primatology in Leipzig, Germany, and an author of a report being published today in the journal Science. "There's a massive decline."

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Ebola Outbreak Killed 5000 Gorillas

Over the past decade, the Zaire strain of Ebola virus (ZEBOV) has repeatedly emerged in Gabon and Congo. Each human outbreak has been accompanied by reports of gorilla and chimpanzee carcasses in neighboring forests, but both the extent of ape mortality and the causal role of ZEBOV have been hotly debated. Here, we present data suggesting that in 2002 and 2003 ZEBOV killed about 5000 gorillas in our study area. The lag between neighboring gorilla groups in mortality onset was close to the ZEBOV disease cycle length, evidence that group-to-group transmission has amplified gorilla die-offs.

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Ebola outbreaks kill 25% of world's gorillas

The Ebola virus, a nasty hemorrhagic fever that causes massive organ failure and bleeding, is killing thousands of endangered gorillas across Central African forests according to new research published in the journal Science. While the findings suggests that even in strictly protected wildlife sanctuaries gorillas are not safe, the research provides insight on how to control Ebola outbreaks among wild gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

The new study, led by Magdalena Bermejo of the University of Barcelona, provides strong evidence that Ebola killed at least 5,500 at a single site -- the western portion of the Lossi Sanctuary in northwest Republic of Congo -- in outbreaks between 2001 and 2005. Bermejo, along with Jose Domingo Rodriguez Teijeiro (University of Barcelona), Carles Vila (Uppsala University in Sweden), and Peter Walsh (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) found extraordinarily high rates of ape mortality caused by Ebola outbreaks in 2002 and 2003 in Lossi. Gorillas suffered a 95 percent mortality rate, while chimps had 77 percent mortality rate, according to transect surveys conducted by the researchers. While exact numbers aren't yet known, the team estimates that Ebola outbreaks over the past twelve years may have killed 25 percent of the world's gorilla population.

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Volcano eruption poses threat in Congo

KINSHASA, Congo - Mount Nyamulagira erupted near the city of Goma in eastern Congo, threatening to shower ash on a national park that is home to some rare animals, officials said Tuesday.

The most immediate danger was to animals in Congo's nearby Virunga National Park, which were likely to fall ill or die from eating plants covered with the ash, Kasereka said.

Among the rare animals in the park are a threatened hippo population and the mountain gorilla.

Zookeeper Plays Mom To Baby Gorilla

(AP) Barb Jones spends her days crawling through piles of straw with a 15-pound baby gorilla on her back, sometimes climbing up on platforms inside the cage.

It's all part of being a surrogate mother to baby gorillas, but that doesn't mean it's easy work for the 68-year-old Jones, who's been doing it for 26 years.

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Gorillas in our midst

EVEN before Dian Fossey focused international attention on the plight of the mountain gorilla, naturalist George Schaller, the first to study the species, had said: "No one who looks into a gorilla's eyes, intelligent, gentle, vulnerable, can remain unchanged, for the gap between ape and human vanishes."

Unfortunately, all such rational thought disappeared into the cloud forest mist as I battled with a forbidding screen of dense undergrowth.

Rwanda: The Gorilla Gem of Rwanda

The recent baby gorillas naming ceremony in the Virunga National Park was an event that was graced with honour, reflecting how important the apes are to the economies of Rwanda, DRC and Uganda.

Representatives from the United States, Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands -- where most of Rwanda's tourists come from -- participated in the baby gorillas naming ceremony, normally reserved for newborn children. The UK ambassador to Rwanda Jeremy Macadie called one of the gorillas "Big Ben" after London's famous landmark.

"Like the way 'Big Ben' is a major tourist spot in London, this young baby gorilla will be a central attraction for tourists to this beautiful nation," Macadie said. Rwanda earned over $25 million (14 million pounds) from the tourism sector in 2005 but hopes to make close to $100 million by 2010. The first public naming ceremony was held last year when 30 baby gorillas were given local names.

Success Beats in the Heart of a Captive Gorilla

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Gorilla gorilla gorilla .

The scientific name of the endangered western lowland gorilla echoes like a cry for help.

Adult western lowland gorillas in captivity are dying of an unexplained heart condition called fibrosing cardiomyopathy, which turns healthy heart muscle into fibrous bands unable to pump blood. The condition is similar to a human form of heart disease.

No one has kept track of exactly how many captive gorillas have succumbed, but veterinarians Tom Meehan of the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago and Linda Lowenstine of the University of California at Davis calculated that 41 percent of deaths of captive gorillas -- and 70 percent of deaths of the males older than 30 -- are the result of heart disease, primarily fibrosing cardiomyopathy.

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Can cell-phone recycling help African gorillas?

Conservationists point out that recycling cell phones protects landfills from the many potentially hazardous chemicals found in the phones, including antimony, arsenic, copper, cadmium, lead, and zinc.

But cell phones also include coltan, a mineral extracted in the deep forests of Congo in central Africa, home to the world's endangered lowland gorillas.

Fueled by the worldwide cell phone boom, Congo's out-of-control coltan mining business has in recent years led to a dramatic reduction of animal habitat and the rampant slaughter of great apes for the illegal bush-meat trade.

"Most people don't know that there's a connection between this metal in their cell phones and the well-being of wildlife in the area where it's mined," said Karen Killmar, the associate curator of mammals at the San Diego Zoo.

"Recycling old cell phones is a way for people to do something very simple that could reduce the need for additional coltan É and help protect the gorillas," she said.

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