Taking a Look at Endangered Primates

The Gorilla beringei beringei or mountain gorilla, was first discovered on October 17th 1902, by a German officer named Captain Robert von Beringe (Berggorilla and Direkthilfe, 2002). Mountain gorillas play a large role in it’s particular ecosystem through consumption the gorillas control and maintain vegetation that is vital for a healthy environment not only for the primate but also other species that live in the environment as well. Since the discovery of the mountain gorilla much fascination has been drawn toward the species. However, the gentle creature’s population has had a sharp decline from Rwanda’s belief in sumu, poaching, human disease, and unregulated tourism. In efforts to revive the species population from extinction, persistent activism through worldly foundations are helping protect the mountain gorilla species.

A few weeks ago, I spent a lovely Monday afternoon observing two different primates at the Santa Ana Zoo. I got to the zoo around two in the afternoon, and to my surprise, the zoo was decently crowded. The Santa Ana Zoo is smaller in comparison to other zoos like the Los Angeles Zoo, but still had a decent amount of animals there. Covering a small 20 acres of land, I came across two primates that fit perfectly for the purposes of this course project. I chose to observe an endangered ape, the white-handed gibbon, and an endangered new world monkey, the golden-headed lion tamarin.

Primates are one of the most interesting mammals on earth, not only because of their complex social structures, but because they hold so many similar characteristics to humans. Primates are often cited as our closest living relatives and on two separate occasions I observed four separate species of primates at the San Diego Zoo that can justify their use of their physical characteristics and behaviors that may be similar as well as different to the other primates and ours.

With only two hundred and fifty to three hundred left, the critically endangered Cross River Gorilla roams the African forests while on the brink of extinction (Save Our Species). Africa has many populations of primates that are at the least endangered, and the Cross River Gorilla is the closest to extinction and the least studied due to the rarity of observing them. (Save Our Species). These gorillas are confined to small, mountainous areas that have been separated over and over again by fragmentation, furthermore ruining the needed social aspect of the groups and need for vast land (Imong, I., & Robbins, M.), (Save Our Species) The increased hunting and fragmentation of these Gorilla’s habitats has caused a large problem with how the

With the extinction of many animals and the changing environment due to human activities, conservation methods should be put into action to save the earth and its residents. With so many negative things happening to the environment it is possible that the earth and its resources could run out in the next few generations. One species, the mountain gorillas, contribute greatly to the well being of the earth and needs to be saved. Being the destroyers of the earth, I believe that it our duty to find a way repent for our negligence to our neighbors and environment.

This book was about the life of apes in their natural habitat that is being destroyed. Stanford highly pushed the idea of extinction and what people are doing to the apes. Stanford explains the threats to the ape's survival and tells us ideas that could help stop or slow down the decline of the ape population. He tells us about the complex cultural, social, economic and

Primate conservation has long been a topic of debate, reliant most heavily on the struggle to provide the necessary resources to combat the declining rate of population growth among various species. Orangutans in particular, both Sumatran and Bornean, have experienced a rapid drop in their free-living populations. With an estimate of only 27,000 left in the wild, questions have been raised over what selective pressures are impacting the steady decline of these animals existence. While hunting and poaching have been identified as contributing factors, habitat loss primarily takes center stage in their demise. Conservation efforts have been made and continue to be somewhat successful, however, challenges and set backs continue to threaten

Gentle, peaceful & shy are the words that describe gorillas. Gorillas in the mountains & eastern lowland areas are totally vegetarian & eat leaves, fruits, & stems like bamboo. On the other hand, gorillas in the Western lowlands eat small invertebrates & insects apart from plants. It’s anticipated that approximately 80% of gorilla population’s extinct, because of the destruction of their habitat, humans hunting them down & diseases as a result of Ebola

They are very fast and can be able to run within short distances using the most minimal time. It takes less than 10 seconds to run within a distance of approximately 100 meters. While the animals move around they try to monitor the environment as quadrupedally and monitoring of the environment can be able to take as much as up to ten minutes in any case they have doubts of where they are, this alerts them of any predators. Consortship is a situation where the two animals would stay close to each other and monitor the movement and environment of each other. This is done as long as the animals are out in an environment that is not seen as being friendly. The patas can be seen to be less vocal and they move around in silence, they make certain noise only once when they have seen a predator. The noise or the sound takes just a few seconds as long as the danger is taken away

There are many wild animals in the world are in danger. The mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) are one of the most threatened species in the world that inherited from monkeys (Macaca Fascicularis) and apes (Hominoidea), which was found in Africa and Arabia about 34-24 millions years ago. Mountain gorillas are Animalia, which phylum is Chordata and class of Mammalia. The mountain gorilla is a subspecies of eastern gorilla, which live in two regions in Africa. There are three countries where mountain gorillas live. They are Uganda, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. According to National geographic, there are about 700 mountain gorillas remaining in the earth and half of them live in a Virunga mountains in central Africa. In average, they live about 35 years; the standing height of a mountain gorilla is between 4-6 feet. They’re weight usually between 300-485 pounds and they are bit larger than other type of gorillas. Mountain gorilla usually live in a group and head of their group is called ‘silverback’ that is an adult male who grow a patch of silver hair on their back and hips. However, when dominant silverback die, the whole group face hard time to regroup themselves. Female gorilla usually becomes sexually mature before male gorilla. At the age of 7-8 female gorillas become sexually active, however they started to breed few years later. On the other hand, male gorilla starts

During the Eocene epoch, 47,000,000 years ago, one of our ancestors lived in what is now Germany. She was still young, her baby teeth still intact and probably less than a year old. This little girl came to a lake’s edge for a drink of water; cupping the water with her hand she slowly drank the water while holding onto a branch with her other hand. Our ancestor died there when she was overcome by an underground gas bubble that erupted, the fumes leaving her unconscious; she fell into the water and drowned. Her body slowly drifted to the bottom of the lake with a myriad of other creatures. The lake where she was buried eventually filled with mud and algae that turned into oily shale

Primates have always been a fascination of author Robert Sapolsky who wrote an autobiography about a trip he took to Kenya as a research undergraduate student. Part 1 is named the adolescent years and talks about when Sapolsky first joined the baboon trip to Kenya. It introduces his research assignment, how stress affected a primates health, and the baboons he recorded his data from. Soloman was the alpha male and Leah was the alpha female. Devorah was the most eligible female in the group. Ruth, a lower-ranking baboon, who had difficulty finding a mate settled down with Joshua, another lower-ranking baboon. They soon had Obadiah. Uriah a large baboon who transferred into the group in the spring persisted a challenge against Soloman until he

Dian Fossey was a normal young lady that had the dream of taking part in the research of gorillas in Africa. She attended a conference one evening that was given by Dr. Louis Leaky. Dr. Leaky talked about the enormous problem of keeping the gorillas that roamed the Virunga Mountains of Africa from going extinct. He explained the

The Virunga National Park is one of the most biologically diverse areas on the planet and home to a short list of endangered mountain gorillas. Currently, there are 880 mountain gorillas located in the forests shared between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. Virunga was the first national park founded by King Albert I of Belgium in Africa. The park was founded in order to protect the mountain gorillas, but unfortunately poaching had caused them to go extinct. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is extremely rich in natural resources, but is politically unstable, has a lack of infrastructure, and deep corruption. The Congo had faced serious threats since the Civil War and wasn’t declared independent until 1960. In 1994, factions of african rebel groups are trying to gain control of natural resources to sell to foreign corporations. Since parts of Virunga lies on the eastern Congo, the park also lies within the natural resources that European private corporations are highly interested. It wasn’t until 2010 when oil was discovered in the eastern Congo (Virunga National Park). The Virunga National Park is known for its

Dian helped us connect even more to the foreign primates by focusing on the different habits of mother, baby, and adolescent gorillas. Giving each gorilla a name, Fossey helped us almost humanize the animals through her vivid descriptions of their personality and behavior. She showed us that gorilla mothers protect, care for, and discipline their infants. Gorilla babies develop much the same ways humans do; acquiring skills as they age. Adolescents can be just as curious as they are mischievous. Fossey's work helps replace the image of the gorilla as a ferocious animal into one that is kind, gentle, and more human-like that we had never known.