This has been very important as we move into a new phase of troop management with the four bachelors. Between the keeper staff and our volunteers in the Gorilla Research Station, we’re able to keep a close eye on all eight of our gorillas. Sometimes we see genuine social issues develop, while other times play just gets a little too rough.īachelor troops are a relatively new concept in zoos, so constant, adaptive management is the key to peace within the troop. This troop consists of four 14- to 15-year-old males. In recent months, we have seen a few different wounds to gorillas in our bachelor troop. This information is not only important for individual injuries, but for enhancing our ability to treat future injuries. Photographs are especially helpful, as they can be used as objective data to monitor the healing process. We use a very detailed system to document every injury and the details of the situation in which it occurred. We also record even the smallest injuries. If a gorilla were to need an injectable medication, which is rare, we want to get it to them in the least stressful way. We also desensitize them to being sprayed with antiseptic sprays, and we work on more complicated behaviors, like hand injections. We train with the gorillas daily to make sure we can see every part of their body. The decision to anesthetize a gorilla to suture a wound is a carefully calculated risk/reward scenario, especially considering that more often than not that gorilla is going to hand you back those sutures within a few hours of waking up. As zookeepers, we keep a close eye on injuries to make sure things are healing appropriately, but when we can, we try to let the gorillas handle the job.
If you see a gorilla with an open wound, you may notice them grooming it with their fingers and utilizing nature’s ultimate antiseptic, spit, to keep it clean. Keeping that in mind, most animals are experts at taking care of their own wounds, and gorillas are no exception. At the Dallas Zoo, we have an exceptional veterinary staff that can treat just about anything, and we don’t hesitate to call upon them when needed. Cutting your finger on a broken glass could require stitches, but in the middle of the jungle you don’t have the luxury of hopping in the car and heading to the hospital.Īs bad as an open laceration may appear, it may not be that big of a deal for the gorilla. Being that we’re so delicate, we’re used to even small wounds requiring attention, so our own experiences create a predisposition to react to wounds a certain way. However, when threatened, a male gorilla will not hesitate to defend his troop.įighting isn’t just a human trait, it’s part of life for much of the animal kingdom. In the wild, keeping a 400-pound frame of muscle while sometimes eating only the caloric equivalent of wild celery means there aren’t many good reasons to waste energy. If you think about it, fighting someone means you’re just as likely to get hurt as they are, so why risk it? Gorillas are peaceful, laid-back animals that generally keep to themselves. If challenged, gorillas go through a long list of behaviors, trying to avoid a physical conflict. Male gorillas have much larger canines than females, and they use those teeth to protect the females and youngsters in their troop. A male may try to challenge another to usurp his throne or steal females to build a troop of his own. The most common threat to a silverback gorilla is generally another silverback.
Gorillas don’t have any true natural predators, although some research suggests the possibility of rare conflicts with leopards (definitely a good time for big teeth). So why do these herbivorous animals have such big teeth to begin with? Well, those teeth are for protection. When cuts and scrapes occur in our gorillas, we’re always ready to treat and monitor them until every last scratch has healed. It’s no surprise that a 450-pound gorilla with canine teeth 2-3 inches long can leave a nasty wound on another gorilla, and from time to time we see that here at the Zoo. In their environments, being tough is the key to survival. The other great apes continued down their own paths, which still require them to be strong, powerful animals. We no longer needed to be big and tough, so those traits began to go away as we became more technologically advanced. These advancements set us on a course to be very smart – and very squishy. And while those primates evolved to be big and tough, we did not.Īs our brains began to develop instead, we became adept at using tools and learned to control fire, build shelters, and grow our own food. It’s been a long time since our ancestors shared any of the strong, physical traits of the other great apes. Gorillas Zola (left) and B’wenzi (right) interact in their habitat.
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