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For more than 30 years, as "A Conversation With Koko"
shows, Dr. Francine "Penny" Patterson and her colleagues have
learned a great deal about gorilla behavior and communication by observing
their trio of apes at a 7-acre research facility in a California redwood
forest. Today, however, the gorillas may have outgrown their home, and
Patterson hopes to move them to more spacious quarters.
Koko may soon have a larger home. |
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"It's long been one of our goals
to put the gorillas in a place that is more like their native African
habitat," says Kevin Connelly of the Gorilla Foundation, which
cares for Koko and raises funds for Patterson's research. Koko, he notes,
is a western lowland gorilla, one of the three types of endangered gorillas
found in central Africa. The rarest, the mountain gorilla, is not kept
in captivity and numbers fewer than 600 in the wild. In contrast, there
are about 5,000 eastern lowland gorillas still in the wild, and perhaps
as many as 80,000 western lowland gorillas, though both species face
serious threats from habitat loss and hunting. Western lowland gorillas
are by far the most common gorillas found in captivity: they account
for more than 98% of the approximately 700 gorillas in zoos and research
programs around the world.
Like Koko, however, captive gorillas rarely find themselves in surroundings
similar to the lush forests and river valleys of their native land. And they may not have as many companions
in captivity as they might in the wild, where gorillas often live in
highly social groups of a dozen or more animals. As a result, captive
animals like Koko may not behave like their wild cousins. For instance,
they may not get the social support and teaching they need to begin
breeding.
In an effort to get around those problems, Patterson began looking
for a better home for Koko. The Gorilla Foundation realized a major
step toward that goal in 1993, when Mary Cameron Sanford and the Maui
Land and Pineapple Company made available 70 acres of land in the western
part of the Hawaiian island of Maui, where "the climate is much
more suitable," says Connelly. "We will develop a large, secluded
sanctuary on the 70 acres. The gorilla families will roam freely within
as spacious enclosures as we can construct -- spending their days socializing,
napping in the sun, playing, foraging through edible vegetation, communicating,
reproducing, and raising their children. Also, our preserve can serve
as a resource for the zoo gorilla and conservation community, providing
needed space and a place for more natural socialization and breeding
opportunities."
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