Chimps , pygmy chimpanzee , orangutans , and lowland gorillas can all love long life sentence in captivity , but one great ape you ’ll never see in a menagerie is a mountain Gorilla gorilla . Some zoo have essay to enchant and contain these unfounded brute , but it did n’t end well .
Mountain gorillasare a subspecies of the eastern Gorilla gorilla , discover in high - altitude forests of the Virunga volcanic mountains of Central / East Africa and Uganda ’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park . They are typically little than other eastern Gorilla gorilla but have notably thicker fur , adapted to the chillier mountain weather . Temperatures can occasionally dip below 0 ° C ( 32 ° F ) in their natural habitat , so a duncical coat is need .
As per thelatest survey , there are just 1,063 individuals left in the wild . They were considered a " critically jeopardize " species , although theirstatus was changedto just " imperil " in 2018 thanks to preservation efforts that brought them back from the precipice of extinguishing .
Unlike mountain gorillas, lowland gorillas are perfectly happy with the zoo life.Image credit: Elena Blokhina/Shutterstock.com
To date , there are no known mass gorillas in incarceration . There were a handful of endeavor to keep mountain gorillas in zoo during the 1960s and 70s , but they all ended in tragedy .
One of the more successful attempts wasseen at Cologne Zooin 1969 when two mountain gorillas , called Coco and Pucker , get in from the Virunga Mountains in Rwanda . Zookeepers were trust to engender the pair , but it eventually transpire that they were both female person .
They bring off to live a relatively well-chosen life , pull round on a supplemented dieting of spinach , celery , onions , broccoli , other vegetables , bamboo shoot , and straw sprouts . However , in 1978 , Coco and Pucker suddenly fell sick with a bacterial infection and both died within a few months of each other . An autopsy evoke that the pair suffered from congenital immune organization defects .
disregarding of the duo ’s inherent wellness condition , it is discernible that mountain gorillas almost always die young when being carry in captivity . The reason for this is n’t fully understood , especially since lowland gorillas can be preserve successfully and have even bred in imprisonment , which is a pretty certain signal they are felicitous .
Onetheoryis that mountain Gorilla gorilla have a very specific dieting made up of 142 different types of fruits , leaves , stanch , roots , and shoots . It ’s laborious to embolden this sort in captivity , miles away from their motherland , so it ’s possible that enwrapped peck gorillas do n’t get the nutrition they demand to stay levelheaded . It ’s also evoke that mountain gorillas may be more prone to stress , which impacts their resistant system and ability to fight down off infection .
It is potential , however , to keep mountain gorillas in a sanctuary background . TheSenkwekwe Centrein Virunga National Park is the world ’s only readiness for orphan peck Gorilla gorilla . Here , expert rangers take care of young mountain gorillas whose menage have been killed by poaching or war , providing them with food and diddle with them throughout the day .
Mountain gorilla are n’t the only animals that are sturdy to keep in imprisonment . chance are , you ’ve never seen a narwal in an aquarium – andfor good reason .
