![]() ![]() Dian Fossey made history when a male gorilla reached out to touch her. Gaining gorilla acceptance of her presence took years of acting submissively while she imitated feeding and contentment sounds. Working alone from a base camp 10,000 feet above sea level, Diane Fossey struggled with acrophobia on 45-degree slopes, torrential rains, hail and fog, foot-deep mud, poachers, gorilla slaughters, witchcraft and revolution. These shy, gentile vegetarians (who occasionally eat grubs for protein) live in a group headed by a dominant male, called a silver-back, and roam a rugged age-old environment between 9,000 feet and 13,000 feet above sea level. One of our closest primate relatives, gorillas form tight kinship bonds, which can sustain these close knit families for generations. Gorillas in the Mist documents one of the longest field studies of primates, as it covers fifteen years, four gorilla families and three generations in the remote rain forests of the volcanic Virunga Mountains shared by Zaire, Rwanda and Uganda. Dian Fossey, the world authority on the endangered mountain gorilla, combines her riveting personal adventure story with fascinating scientific reporting in this landmark book on the greatest of the great apes. The dissolution of the larger family groups – one had included 65 individuals – was probably related to the deaths of charismatic silverback leaders, said Stoinski.Dr. ![]() The number of infant deaths increased fivefold, and the population growth rate was halved. The groups spread out to occupy more territory within Volcanoes National Park, but the number of violent clashes among them increased threefold. Around that time, three large family groups splintered into multiple smaller units, and the overall population also grew.Īs a result, there were then about 10 family groups in the study area. She is also president of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, a nonprofit research and conservation group.ĭuring fieldwork in Rwanda, Stoinski said she witnessed changes in gorilla behavior beginning in about 2007. It turns out the answer depends partly on how they organize themselves socially,” said Tara Stoinski, a primatologist and co-author of the new paper. “Everyone wants to know how many gorillas can live inside the protected habitat area. The frequency of gorilla family feuds was determined not by the total number of individuals, but by the number of family groups in a region, the study concluded. Males will fight to protect the females and infants in their group, and to acquire new females,” said Damien Caillaud, a behavioral ecologist at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of the new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. “Encounters between groups can be violent. Some gorillas, especially infants, perished, which slowed population growth. ![]() Most often, dominant males called silverbacks led the fights. Researchers who analyzed 50 years of demographic and behavioral data from Rwanda found that as the number of gorilla family groups living in a habitat increased, so did the number of violent clashes among them. These large vegetarian apes are generally peaceful – unless you’re a rival gorilla. Mountain gorillas spend most of their time sleeping, chomping leaves and wild celery stalks, and grooming each other’s fur with long, dexterous fingers. A crowded mountain can make silverbacks more violent, scientists say. WASHINGTON (AP) - Gorillas are highly sociable animals – up to a point. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. ![]()
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