Western Lowland Gorilla

Western lowland gorillas (gorilla gorilla gorilla) are a forest dwelling subspecies of Western gorilla (gorilla gorilla) which resides in equatorial Africa from the western lowlands near the Cameroon coast through the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Angola, and possibly the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are a terrestrial species of ape that are best suited for Africa’s tropical secondary forests where open canopies allow for ample sunlight on the forest floor. They, like humans, exhibit marked sexual dimorphism which results in interesting social hierarchy structures. They are impressively large and powerful primates and walk in a quadrupedal fashion.

Their role in the ecosystem has not been fully described as they are herbivores eating mainly fruits and stemmed plants and occasionally herbs and ferns and outside of human hunting, poaching, and infanticide within tribes by newly dominant males, there are no other major sources of predation to gorillas. This may make mistakenly portray them as having little value to humans and within their own ecosystem. They clearly offer humans a source of revenue through meat for food and ecotourism, but they also pose a great economic threat to human agriculture as they raid encroaching farmland of its crops. This creates difficulty in analyzing their economic and environmental “value” in order to urge a priority in conservation.

Human population growth in central Africa poses the largest threat to the wild gorilla. The forests which the gorilla depends on are slowly being cut down for timber, slash and burn agriculture, and occasional but increasing industrial development. For example, cattle ranches in Nigeria cover what use to be territory to gorillas which are now all extinct. Hunting for bush meat and spatial competition from humans also poses a threat, though much smaller in comparison to deforestation. Today, eight countries within the wild gorillas population’s range have government bans on hunting for meat or parts though none are adequately enforced. Today, countries such as Rwanda have educational and conservation programs which attempt to demonstrate the importance of local flora and fauna to local communities.

If we allow ourselves to dismiss the western lowland gorilla as an insignificant source of economic revenue to humans, thus diminishing our incentive to protect them and limit our competition over space, we must in all fairness ask what we consider value to be. If we could place our own critique of value onto ourselves, for instance, how would we fair in comparison to our close relatives? Luckily, many dedicated groups are currently focusing conservation efforts on protecting the remaining populations of Western gorillas, including the lowland and the cross river subspecies. The Wildlife Conservation Society is leading projects to study and eradicate the Ebola virus that is wreaking havoc gorilla populations in order to find an effective means of wide spread administration of a vaccine to immunize the apes. They are also working in concession with logging companies throughout the Congo to reduce pressures placed on local endangered species and to control for poaching. You can aid in their efforts to protect endangered wildlife including the Western lowland gorilla here.

Gorillas are simply a part of biodiversity. This in itself should be motivating to us to maintain our coexistence with them. As this is often not convincing enough of an argument for many, there should be exceptions when a species’ intellectual capacities and social complexities are comparable to our own. As fellow apes, gorillas supply us with vast amounts of genetic information as well as a fascinating source of non-human intelligence. Gorillas have been shown to possess the capacity to understand simple forms of sign language and, although their ability to produce original material is debated, they have so been able to establish interspecies communication with us. They are the first creatures able to reach us through a form of communication once thought unique to humans, language.  

The gorilla’s appearance and occasional competitive displays make them seem inherently aggressive and brutish to us at time. The truth is that their massive forms hide generally shy and peaceful creatures that lead mostly quiet and gentle family lives in their respective habitat. They lead lives that would be compatible with our own if their spaces were protected from further deforestation and fragmentation.