Gorillas

In Meish Goldish’s book, entitled Gorillas, you can learn so many facts. He tells how Diane Fossey, an American zoologist, studied gorillas for nearly eighteen years. She went right into the jungle and did just what the gorillas did. She scratched her head, beat her chest, made their sounds and even ate the same foods they ate…like leaves and twigs. Gorillas also eat rotten wood and small animals, but I bet that Fossey didn’t go that far. I know I wouldn’t…even in the name of science. But, she did gain their confidence, which allowed her to study these giant mammals.Goldish tells how Binti Jua, a gorilla who lives in the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois, saved a three-year old child who fell into her cage. He tells how Bongo, a Columbus Ohio Zoo gorilla, grieved when his partner, Bridgette, died and how he cared for their young son, making the infant’s bed of hay each night. Goldish also writes about how Koko, a gorilla who lives in the San Francisco Zoo, learned sign language using (ASL) American Sign Language. She can sign more than 1,000 words and understands more than 2,000 words.Say no more, Meish Goldish has convinced me that gorillas are intelligent, sensitive, and caring animals. But, he also frightened me. No, not of six hundred pounds of gorilla, but that the gorilla species has become endangered. There are only about 740 gorillas alive today. Now, that’s a scary thought! Poachers encroach upon gorilla habitats and capture and kill them for their meat, called bushmeat, and they use their body parts for souvenirs. That’s an even scarier thought