Youngsters tumble, climb, and runplaying follow the leader. Another group plays a rowdy game of king of the mountain. Several adults watch the action, relaxing nearby. Is this a playground scene at school? No, guess again. It’s a lush mountain forest high in the Virunga mountains of Africa, and the playmates are young mountain gorillas under the watchful eyes of their mothers.
For a long time the image most people had of a gorilla encounter included chest pounding, roaring, charging, and big, bared teeth. But researchers studying gorillas reveal a very different picture of mountain gorillas. The animals are peaceful, gentle, social, and mainly vegetarian creatures. The occasional ferocious-looking, impressive displays are generally from a male gorilla protecting his family group from a threat.
A typical group is led by the biggest and strongest mature male gorilla—often the guy doing any chest pounding or charging. He’s called a silverback because the hair on a male’s back turns from black to silvery gray as he matures. This happens when he is between 11 and 13 years old. A silverback’s group normally includes a subadult male or two and a few females and their young.
Mountain gorillas wander around a home range of up to 15 square miles (39 square kilometers). They spend much of their time eating. Their food includes a variety of plants, along with a few insects and worms. At night the animals make a nest to sleep in. Many lightweight gorillas nest in trees, making beds of bent branches. The heavier individuals may nest in grasses on the ground. Babies snuggle with their mothers for the night.
Life for mountain gorillas isn’t all peaceful. They are endangered, threatened by civil war in a small area of Africa where they live. Hunters kill them for food or trophies. Their forests are chopped down for farmland, fuel, and housing. But many dedicated scientists, park rangers, and other concerned people are working hard to protect mountain gorillas, their forests, and their way of life in the mountains.
Beginning early in the 20th century, collectors and hunters from Europe and the United States began to capture or kill mountain gorillas. In 25 years over 50 mountain gorillas were taken as trophies or for collections. Carl Akeley of the American Museum of Natural History shot five gorillas in 1921, but he was so impressed with these animals that he convinced the Belgian government, which at that time ruled what is now Zaire, to establish Africa's first national park for them in 1925.
The gorillas were relatively protected until 1960, when civil war broke out and park protection disappeared. Poachers set out snares to capture animals for food, and gorillas were caught in the snares. The gorillas also were killed intentionally for their meat and parts; gorilla hands and heads were sold as souvenirs to tourists.
In addition to being killed and captured, the gorillas have lost large amounts of habitat to agriculture. The countries in which they live have some of the highest human population densities in the world. Every acre that is not protected is farmed. In 1968, 40 percent of the remaining forest was turned over to a European-sponsored agricultural scheme. Mountain gorillas live in islands of mountaintop habitat in a sea of human settlement (See Island Biogeography). It is an astonishing sight to see terraced fields climbing right to the border of the gorillas' park, high up the mountain. Sounds of children playing in the fields penetrate into the park, a vivid reminder of the relentless pressures an exploding population places on gorilla habitat.
Dian Fossey, the American zoologist known throughout the world from the movie "Gorillas in the Mist," is credited with the first successful antipoaching efforts in the gorillas' park. Beginning in 1963, she and her staff regularly patrolled the forest and removed snares set to capture antelope and other animals. Although gorillas were not the poachers' main targets, snares often trapped gorillas and they lost a hand or a foot to infection. Fossey's efforts were too successful for her own personal safety, and she made the ultimate sacrifice 20 years after he work began: she was murdered in 1985, presumably by poachers.