Mountain Gorillas eat for up to 5 hours per day.
Amazing Facts About the Mountain Gorilla
- Mountain Gorillas got their name for a reason. The live high in the steep mountain forests of four different national parks in Africa in Uganda, Rwanda and Congo. They live at elevations of up to 8,000 to 13,000 feet (1,500m- 4000m). That is the same height a skydiver would jump out of a plane.
- At this height, the temperatures can drop below freezing so these gorilla’s have thicker, longer fur than other gorillas.
- Mountain Gorillas are one of nature’s largest primates!
- The nose print of a gorilla is unique to each individual gorilla much in the same way as the human finger print is unique to each human being.
- Mountain Gorillas are social beings. They travel in groups of 5 to as many as 30. These groups are all female with only one male who is referred to as the ‘silverback’.
- They are not territorial but the silverback will fight to protect a group of females.
- Females have strong long term relationships with males, but not with females.
- Only 900 Mountain Gorillas are left in the wild. They are classified by the IUCN as an Endangered Species.
- Wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda have forced humans to occupy land around the Virunga Mountains where nearly half of the Gorilla population live. As a result, they have been hunted and their habitats have been destroyed by both illegal charcoal harvesting and legal land clearings to make space for agriculture.
- Close contact with humans has led to gorillas contracting human diseases, often with worse severity. Even the common cold has been known to kill a Mountain Gorilla.
- Fortunately, recent conservation efforts are really making a positive difference for the recovery of this species.