# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Explore the wild world of animals. Discover opportunities to care and conserve. Connect through our camps, courses, and careers at SeaWorld and Busch Gardens.

# data[].attributes.body
Anantdeep Singh

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Cincinnati Zoo in the US is facing a public backlash after shooting dead one of the gorillas in its care.

A young boy got into the gorilla enclosure and was confronted by a silverback male gorilla named Harambe. The gorilla repeatedly dragged the boy through the water. To save the boy, the zoo's staff shot and killed Harambe.

The story is particularly sad because Harambe was a western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), a subspecies of western gorilla that is critically endangered.

The public outrage has mainly focused on whether it was truly necessary to kill Harambe. The zoo has defended its actions, arguing that non-lethal methods such as tranquiliser darts are slow and would have put the child at more risk. Gorilla experts have, in the main, supported the zoo. The Cincinnati police have said they will investigate the child's parents' actions.

The biggest difficulty is figuring out how dangerous Harambe truly was. But decades of research into gorillas does offer some clues. The truth is that gorillas need very careful handling.

Gorillas were once depicted as violent brutes who would kill a human at any chance encounter. It is not a coincidence that the monstrous giant ape King Kong was portrayed as a gorilla.

In different circumstances, gorillas can be truly dangerous

However, from the 1970s onwards the primatologist Dian Fossey transformed gorillas' reputation with her pioneering studies of wild mountain gorillas. These are a different species to Harambe, but the differences are subtle.

Fossey found that the gorillas were hardly ever violent. For the most part they were peaceful.

David Attenborough was filmed with some of Fossey's gorillas for the 1979 television series Life on Earth. The encounter has gone down in television history, because some of the young gorillas started playing with Attenborough.

Clearly, it is possible to meet a gorilla and come away entirely unharmed. But the gorillas Attenborough met had been carefully habituated to humans over many years, and everyone involved knew how to treat them with respect.

In different circumstances, gorillas can be truly dangerous.

Most gorilla violence is directed towards other gorillas.

There have been cases where gorillas attacked and even killed humans, but such incidents are rare

They live in groups, in which one dominant male silverback controls several females and youngsters. If another male approaches, the silverback will try to drive him off. He begins by making threatening displays such as grunting, hooting and chest pounding. If that does not work, he may attack.

Many silverbacks have tell-tale scars from such encounters. The losers sometimes do not survive.

Gorilla attacks on humans follow a similar pattern: the gorilla has to be provoked first.

Ian Redmond of Ape Alliance worked with Fossey in Rwanda for three years in the 1970s, and still works with gorillas. He says there have been cases where gorillas attacked and even killed humans, but such incidents are rare - and the human was always to blame.

"All the incidences I know where people have been hurt by gorillas, or in some cases killed by gorillas, are in the wild where the gorilla feared an attack or was actually attacked," says Redmond.

A gorilla that thinks it is in danger will first make threats. If the human ignores the threat display, or surprises the gorilla or gets in its way, it may then escalate to thumping, scratching and biting, and eventually charging

If the poacher had been an inch closer to the gorilla, he would probably have been disembowelled

"The people I know who have had that experience have been bitten or had a couple of ribs cracked," says Redmond. "They lived to tell the tale, but they ignored the warning signs."

He recalls meeting a poacher with scars across his abdomen where a gorilla had swiped him. If the poacher had been an inch closer to the gorilla, he would probably have been disembowelled.

If this all sounds a bit anecdotal, there is a good reason: there is hardly any research into gorilla attacks. While there is a regularly-updated Shark Attack File documenting shark attacks dating back hundreds of years, there is nothing similar for gorillas.

In fact, a 2012 review of human-wildlife conflicts cites only three incidences of gorilla attacks before 2000.

There have been a handful of other incidents reported.

A study published in 2008 found that female western gorillas frequently acted aggressively towards humans, presumably because they were not used to their presence. The researchers were following the gorillas, and reported that they sometimes "grasped our legs with their hands".

A 2009 report into conflict between humans and apes documents how a silverback male attacked a man in the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary in Cameroon. The man was setting up traps, and the gorilla reportedly attacked him from behind as he was running away. The report cites other attacks in Bwindi, Uganda, but only when the gorillas were raiding crops outside their park boundaries.

Even when attacks do occur, they are rarely fatal

One of the main causes of human-gorilla conflict "is the expansion of human settlement into territory previously part of the gorilla habitat", according to a 2011 report that examined 20 years of mountain gorilla conservation. The report also says that "there is some uncertainty about whether habituation is a cause of this behavior".

A book chapter published in 2015 pulled together all the existing data and tried to figure out how aggressive apes really are. Its co-author Matthew McLennan of Oxford Brookes University in the UK stresses, once again, that gorilla attacks on people in the wild are very rare and usually motivated by a defensive instinct.

"Reports indicate that the target of gorilla aggression is usually an adult human, [for example] a hunter, not a child," says McLennan. Even when attacks do occur, they are rarely fatal.

These stories all relate to wild gorillas, but captive gorillas do not seem to be significantly different. There are only a few cases of captive gorillas behaving aggressively towards humans.

A 2014 study of human-animal relationships in zoos documented only a handful of cases of gorilla aggression. In one a gorilla had escaped its enclosure; in another a keeper was unexpectedly alone; and in a third instance "procedures were not correctly followed". None of these incidents led to deaths.

The gorillas banged the glass, charged at it and thumped their chest

However, there is evidence that an increase in visitor numbers could aggravate gorillas.

A study published in February 2016 followed three western lowland gorillas in Dublin Zoo, Ireland. It found that when visitor numbers went up the gorillas became more aggressive, both towards visitors and each other. The gorillas banged the glass, charged at it, and thumped their chests. They also bit, hit and threatened each other.

The authors recognise that "data on attacks are sparse" and therefore encourage zoos to record any incidents that take place.

There are no known instances of a captive gorilla killing a human

This latest study echoes a 2008 study of UK zoos, which found that gorilla anxiety increased when visitor numbers went up.

In the wild they can roam freely. But in captivity they cannot escape their enclosure to take themselves out of a potentially stressful situation, such as the one Harambe faced. "Wherever they go they are in view," says Redmond. "That adds to their stress."

Nevertheless, to Redmond's knowledge there are no known instances of a captive gorilla killing a human.

Before the incident with Harambe, there were two cases of children getting into gorilla enclosures. Both were unharmed. However, in both cases the children were unconscious, so the gorillas would not have perceived them as a threat.

Most dramatically, in 1986 a gorilla in Jersey Zoo in the UK acted in a protective way after a boy fell into a gorilla enclosure.

All told, there have been three instances where children have fallen into gorilla enclosures, and in two cases nobody died. "This time somebody did, and it was the gorilla," says Redmond.

He says the most important thing is not to judge the actions of Cincinnati Zoo, but to learn from the incident to prevent anything like it happening again.
Melissa Hogenboom is BBC Earth's feature writer. She is on Twitter.
If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cincinnati Zoo in the US is facing a public backlash after shooting dead one of the gorillas in its care. A young boy got into the gorilla enclosure and was confronted by a silverback male gorilla named Harambe. The gorilla repeatedly dragged the boy through the water.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.defenders.org/gorilla/basic-facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Primate Factsheets: Gorilla (Gorilla) Behavior

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Current knowledge on the social organization and behavior of gorillas is dominated by results from research on mountain gorillas though there are some data for eastern and western lowland gorillas. The minimum group size for all subspecies is two individuals (usually a silverback and a female), except for males ranging alone, while maximum group size varies slightly for each subspecies (Yamagiwa et al.

# data[].attributes.body
/www.ugandagorillasafari.net/mountain-gorilla-behavior-facts.html

# data[].attributes.body
Isaiah

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Gorillas are among the closest relatives of Homo sapiens, which is evident by looking at them in pictures or videos. However, it takes more than a physical resemblance to consider two species closely related; therefore, studies of genetics, anatomy, morphology and other scientific fields are made to verify that, indeed, gorillas and humans share 95-99 % of DNA.

This broad DNA match means that several million years ago, gorillas, chimps, and humans shared a common ancestor, but they split at some points of time and evolved as different species. It is, therefore, understandable that they are similar, and that when European explorers discovered them in Africa, described them as men-like creatures, but furred.

Humans and gorillas share 95-99% of DNA.

Similarities between humans and gorillas:

The Genetic sequences of both species are similar.

Every individual of each species has unique fingerprints and opposable thumbs.

The gestation period for both is long, eight and a half months for gorillas and nine months for humans.

Gorilla growth and development is slow, and they reach sexual maturity after their first decade of life. Men and women have similar growth stages.

Mothers and their offspring engage in a close relationship just like humans.

Human-Gorilla Relationship.

Some people may believe that gorillas are ferocious and aggressive animals. Thus, they have been characterized this way in several movies, series and video games: huge creatures that stand on two legs and emit an angry roar while beating their breasts. But this is not exactly the case.

Unlike the way they are portrayed, gorillas are usually calm and have a peaceful social life. They rarely show aggressive behavior; it only occurs when they feel threatened. This fact does not mean that anyone can approach them recklessness, as they are not familiarized to see humans frequently in their natural habitat.

The interaction of gorillas with humans has been progressive. From being little known and understood, they became a popular subject of research by middle twentieth century. Dian Fossey is one of the most prominent primatologists in history and gave the world detailed information about the actual nature of the genus Gorilla. After a thorough investigation process in Africa about mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), she changed the perception that they are aggressive animals, and made outstanding efforts to preserve this subspecies, severely threatened by poachers.

Human-Gorilla Struggle.

Poaching and habitat destruction are two of the boldest threats that gorillas face, and they menace their survival far more than their natural predators. As you already assumed, such threats are related to human activities.

Poaching and habitat destruction are two of the boldest threats that gorillas face.

There is not any other predator as dangerous and ruthless on the planet than humans, who dominate almost every habitat in the world and have taken advantage of their resources to meet their increasing needs. Consequently, hectares of forests are cut down continuously to build communities or use them as wood. Additionally, unconscious people kill gorillas for their meat or to sell their body parts, or they just capture these magnificent animals to sell them as pets. Even climate change and armed conflicts in African countries issues evidently not related to gorillas, take a toll from them.

Mountain gorillas and Cross River gorillas (Gorilla gorilla diehli) have small populations; particularly the former, has a habitat range virtually surrounded by human populations, so the possibility of moving to other areas it is not very likely, making their survival probability very reduced.

Then, what is worth mention about this human-gorilla relationship? At the top of the list is the amazing people that have the courage to improve their situation risking their life sometimes. Humans have affected the survival of these primates, but there is some people aware of this and the importance of their endurance of the species, so they've been doing their part to preserve them.

Podcast - Humans and Gorillas.
Sources:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120306-gorilla-genome-apes-humans-evolution-science/

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-17239059

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151226-the-woman-who-gave-her-life-to-save-the-gorillas

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30313306
BioExpedition Publishing © 2017.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gorillas and Humans - Gorilla Facts and Information

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Gorillas are among the closest relatives of Homo sapiens, which is evident by looking at them in pictures or videos. However, it takes more than a physical resemblance to consider two species closely related; therefore, studies of genetics, anatomy, morphology and other scientific fields are made to verify that, indeed, gorillas and humans share 95-99 % of DNA.

# data[].attributes.body
Isaiah

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Gorillas are charismatic, intelligent, and in danger. Learn more and help WWF fight habitat destruction and poaching of our ape cousins.

# data[].attributes.body
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla book

# data[].attributes.body
Gorilla Behavior (Van Nostrand Reinhold primate behavior and development series)

# data[].attributes.body
https://seaworld.org/en/animal-info/animal-infobooks/gorilla/behaviorhttps://seaworld.org/en/animal-info/animal-infobooks/gorilla/behavior

# data[].attributes.body
://www.ugandagorillasafari.net/mountain-gorilla-behavior-facts.html

# data[].attributes.body
https://seaworld.org/en/animal-info/animal-infobooks/gorilla/behavior

# data[].attributes.body
s://seaworld.org/animal-info/animal-infobooks/gorilla/scientific-classification

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.igorilla.org/how.html

# data[].attributes.body
Book:
Gorilla's Society by Kelly Stewart
Website:
https://seaworld.org/en/animal-info/animal-infobooks/gorilla/behavior

# data[].attributes.body
Book:
Gorilla Behavior by Terry Maple
Gorilla Behavior

by Terry Maple