Mountain Gorilla

Mountain gorillas are one of the largest primates in the world. African rainforests are the only habitat for mountain gorillas and the place where these great apes face a lot of daily threats, which placed them in the critically endangered rank because their numbers are decreasing rapidly in the wild.

Mountain gorillas are “big, black monkeys” as described by Captain Robert von Beringe, the first to discover Mountain gorillas and meet with them. Mountain gorillas have muscular arms, which are longer than their legs. In addition to black thick fur, three to four inches long, that protects them as insulation in cold weather. The black fur is present all over the gorilla body except for their massive chests, broad hands and feet. Moreover, mountain gorilla males are different than females. For instance, usually males, which can reach up to 400 pounds, weight twice as much as females. Furthermore, males’ height is more than 5.5 feet when standing and more than 3 feet when knuckle walking. Some male mountain gorillas have silver fur on their back so they are called dominant Silverback. Silverback gorillas are usually the biggest and strongest mature males in the group so they guide the whole group while searching for food.

There are a lot of problems that mountain gorillas face in their habitat. First of all, habitat loss, where forests are replaced with farming lands so gorillas are forced to go up higher on the mountains to protect themselves from poachers (illegal hunters) and to guard their offspring. In addition that when a rebellion started in Rwanda in 1990, people escaped to the Parc National des Volcans (Volcanoes National Park) and because they needed nourishment to feed their families, people destroyed the rainforest by ...

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...ing gorillas where their main objective is:

“The Gorilla Doctors are dedicated to conserving wild mountain and eastern lowland (or Grauer's) gorillas through life-saving veterinary medicine and a One Health approach. Our international team of veterinarians is the only group providing these critically endangered animals with direct, hands-on care in the wild.”

(“Saving a Species One Gorilla at a Time” 1).

Taking everything into consideration, mountain gorillas, which are currently endangered, needs our efforts to help it survive the tough conditions it faces every day in its environment. Although many conservations are working on saving these peaceful animals, I believe that every single person should try helping at least by donating an amount of money even if it was small amount, it would save the balance of this environment. Everyone should help save the nature.