Gorilla movements: why gorillas move from one place to another
Gorilla movements, the mountain gorilla movement, are majorly influenced by the search for food just like any other animal though sometimes the movement will be out of threat amongst themselves. Mountain gorillas are believed to averagely move for about 1-2 km per day or less than that, however it has been noted that these animals can even move beyond 4 km a day depending on various factors which may determine their movement like;
Availability of food.
Mountain gorillas always move looking for food and they tend to move for so long when it is a fruiting period looking for fruits .on the other hand with the availability of the food these animals can even move for less than 1 km per day.
Closeness to another nearby gorilla family.
Mountain gorillas are Non territorial animals but they feed in home ranges , their home ranges are estimated to be about 25-35 km so sometimes these animals have got interlocking home ranges and sometimes they end up feeding and getting close to the other family and if it so happens that the two families are close to each other the dominant males have to play their role of ensuring the safety of their families and in the due course they have to express their strength through chest beating ,making scaring sounds or calls breaking tree branches as way of scaring one another and at times one may develop fear of the other and decides to move away with his family and such silverbacks tend to always move so far away from where they have been as a way of ensuring that they don’t meet that family again
The mountain gorillas move using both their knuckles and their feet and they have the ability to climb trees even as high as 30m above, while moving the silverback leads the family or the alpha adult female of the family and the sub adult males come from behind as strategy of safeguarding the family.
The females with young infants carry their infants with them as infants of 0 – 1 year old are always carried on their mother’s chest and the infants of 1 – 3.5 years of age are always carried on their mother’s’ back this is to ensure that no infant is left behind as the infants may not be in position to move at the entire family pace. while moving gorillas keep on feeding and resting and in most cases they move in the same path with the exemption of the black backs or young silverback who may prefer to move from aside of the group or come from behind, this is majorly because of the need to ensure that the family is safe this actually acts like their defensive strategy when running away from an attack of a wild or solitary silverback they tend to move while chest beating and breaking trees and the silverback will lead the family or either come from behind his females and such situations of an attack that is when these animals always tend to move for so long, as they try to escape an attack in this case the family may keep running for a period of three days if they feel they are still not secure of the other family or solitary male is still following them so the run as to continue interesting is that they will still make their night nests and try to have a night rest because the one chasing after them has also to make nests for the night rest but after resting these animals always leave their night nests very early so as to continue to escape from the attack.
On rare occasions mountain gorillas can move in the night majorly when they are attacked during the day or late hours while trying to make their nests, the fearful silverbacks will try to run away with the entire family while running away from an attack time for feeding may not be available because of too much fear as one may keep following after them since this is one way of obtaining new family members from the silverbacks with families already and also one way for the solitary silverbacks to obtain their own families .Incase the solitary male grabs some females to join him , they tend to run away with the females for so long distance and the male will keep controlling the females as a way of ensuring that the females don’t escape and go back to rejoin their natal family. Majorly their fights are for mating competition amongst themselves.
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Leadership of the gorilla family
Socially mountain gorillas live in cohesive stable families with one dominant male; there are three common types of gorilla families;
All male families (Non reproductive). These are groups with only males and this kind of the group is non reproductive but still it is more important than one being solitary because it gives Social comfort amongst themselves , it is easy for them to engage in the fight in case of an encounter with other groups and hence making it easy to absorb females in them .
One male family. These are groups with only one male with adult females and other immature individuals of various ages. The dominant male being the only male in the group
Multi-male family (Heterosexual). These are groups with more than one male, but one must be the dominant of the group. The other males in the group may be the black backs of the young silverbacks. In most cases these males are related and they were the ones living together. So leadership in the family, the family is always led by the dominant male assisted by the adult females or the black back and the young silverback in case any in the group. The dominant male determines where the group should feed from, nests, rest and incase of an attack from other groups the dominant male depends the group with his whole body though they may be helped sometimes by the subordinate males. This explains the reason as to why the dominant male may be tolerant to the subordinate males rather than chasing them away from the group because they help in the group defense.
Males majorly follow two major strategies to be dominant males, either try to overtake the dominant from fighting or to transfer and live a solitary life and keep attempting to overtake some other groups that he encounters on, sometimes they become patient and wait until the dominant male grows old and becomes weeks then they easily take over the group from him. Remember, not all the silverback become dominant some may fail to obtain dominance of the group, this may be because they are weak or they can tolerate the behavior of the alpha male and ultimately decide to live in their natal group under the leadership of the father.