Modern Mind

herself with a handful of leaves; immediately, her two-year-old infant did the same although his bottom was clean. 12
    Dian Fossey’s
Gorillas in the Mist
related her observations and experiences on the Rwanda/Zaire/Uganda border in the 1970s, and concerned one species of mountain gorilla,
Gorilla gorilla berengei.
While much more impressive physically than the chimpanzee, this primate was and remains the most threatened in terms of numbers. Rwanda is one of the most densely populated African countries, and the gorilla population had by then been falling by an average of 3 percent a year for more than twenty years, to the point where not much more than 250 were left. Fossey’s work was therefore as much a part of ecology as biology. 13
    Fossey documented in shocking detail the vicious work of poachers, who sometimes kidnapped animals for zoos and sometimes killed them, cutting off their heads and hands in a primitive ritual. This aspect of her book, when it was published in 1983, shocked the world, stimulating action to conserve the dwindling numbers of an animal that, despite its fierce appearance and ‘King Kong’ reputation, the other part of her argument showed to be unfairly maligned. Fossey found that she was able to habituate herself to at least some of the gorilla groups near her research station, Karisoke, in the volcanic Parc des Virungas. The crucial element here was that she had learned what she called ‘belch vocalisations,’ a soft, deep, purr,
‘naoom, naoom,’
which resembled a stomach rumbling. These sounds, she found, which express contentment in gorillas, announced her presence and set the animals at ease to the point where, eventually, she could sit among them, exchanging sounds and observing close up. She found that gorillas had a family structure much closer to that of humans than did chimpanzees. They lived in relatively stable groups of about ten individuals. ‘A typical group contains: one silverback, a sexually mature male over the age of fifteen years, who is the group’s undisputed leader and weighs roughly 375 pounds, or about twice the size of a female; one blackback, a sexually immature male between eight and thirteen years weighing some 250 pounds; three to four sexually mature females over eight years, each about 200 pounds, who are ordinarily bonded to the dominant silverback for life; and, lastly, from three to six immature members, those under eight years…. The prolonged period of association of the young with their parents, peers, and siblings offers the gorilla a unique and secure type of familial organisation bonded by strong kin ties. As the male and female offspring approach sexual maturity they often leave their natal groups. The dispersal of mating individuals is perhaps an evolved pattern to reduce the effects of inbreeding, though it seems that maturing individuals are more likely to migrate when there are no breeding opportunities within the group into which they are born.’ 14
    Fossey found that different gorillas had very different characters, and that they used some seven different sounds – including alarm calls, pig-grunts when travelling, rebuttals to other sounds, and disciplinary enforcements between adults and young. Unfortunately, Dian Fossey was unable to further her studies;at the end of 1985 she too, like the Adamsons, was murdered. Her black tracker and her white research assistant were both accused, though the charges against her tracker were dropped. Fearful of not receiving a fair trial, the white assistant fled the country, later to be convicted in his absence. 15 In the short run, Fossey’s battle against poaching was more important than her ethological observations, as her death shows. But only in the short run. For example, her sensitive description of the gorilla Icarus’s response to the death of another, Marchesa, raised profound questions about gorilla ‘grief and the nonhuman understanding of death. In many ways, the evolutionary psychology of gorillas is even more enlightening than that of chimpanzees.
    George Schaller, director of the Wildlife Conservation Division of the New York Zoological Society, made it his life’s work to study some of the ecologically threatened large animals of the world, in the hope that this would contribute to their survival. In a long career, he spent time studying pandas, tigers, deer, and gorillas but his most celebrated study, published in 1972, was
The Serengeti Lion.
16 This book, which also