Douala, Cameroon – In the forests along the border of Cameroon and Nigeria lives one of the world’s rarest great apes. With fewer than 300 individuals remaining in the wild, the Cross River gorilla faces an uncertain future. But a growing alliance of conservation organisations and local communities is working to ensure that this extraordinary species does not disappear.

In February 2026, nine conservation organisations gathered in Douala, Cameroon, for a three-day knowledge exchange workshop aimed at strengthening collaboration and accelerating community-led conservation across the Cross River gorilla’s remaining habitat.

The workshop was facilitated by the African Conservation Foundation, Environment and Rural Development Foundation, and CEPOW Cameroon. It brought together conservation practitioners working across key gorilla landscapes to share field experiences, discuss common challenges, and develop practical strategies to protect gorillas and the forests they depend on.

Critically endangered

The Cross River gorilla survives in small and fragmented forest areas scattered across the mountainous border region between Cameroon and Nigeria. Important habitats include Takamanda National Park, Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary, and the Mone Wildlife Reserve, as well as forest landscapes in the Rumpi Hills and Upper Bayang regions.

However, these forests face increasing pressure from logging, agricultural expansion, and other human activities. Habitat fragmentation has become one of the most serious threats to the survival of the species, isolating gorilla groups and reducing genetic diversity.

During the workshop, participants emphasised that protecting the Cross River gorilla requires more than safeguarding isolated protected areas. Instead, conservation must focus on maintaining ecological corridors that allow gorillas to move between forest landscapes. These connections are vital to maintaining healthy populations.

Community forests

One of the most promising solutions discussed was the expansion of community forest management. Cameroon’s community forest model allows local communities to legally manage forest areas for long-term sustainable use. When communities are supported with strong governance and conservation planning, community forests can become powerful tools for protecting wildlife habitat while also supporting local livelihoods.

Participants shared experiences from across the region on how community forests can help secure forest corridors and strengthen local stewardship of natural resources.

The workshop also explored new approaches to monitoring wildlife populations and conservation threats. Participants discussed the use of advanced tools such as the SMART Conservation Software, which helps conservation teams collect and analyse field data on wildlife sightings, patrol activities, and illegal activities such as poaching and logging.

Improved monitoring systems allow conservation organisations to better understand changes in wildlife populations and respond more quickly to threats.

At the same time, conservation leaders stressed the importance of supporting communities living near gorilla habitats. Many rural households rely heavily on forest resources, and conservation strategies must therefore provide alternative livelihood opportunities that reduce pressure on forests.

Participants shared examples of successful initiatives including agroforestry systems, beekeeping, aquaculture, mushroom production, and small livestock farming. These activities help generate income while maintaining healthy forest ecosystems.

Cross River Gorilla Conservation Alliance

One of the most important outcomes of the meeting was the decision to establish a Cross River Gorilla Community-Led Conservation Alliance. This new alliance will strengthen cooperation between organisations working across the gorilla’s range and provide a platform for coordinating conservation efforts at a landscape scale.

Through the alliance, conservation groups will work together to harmonise biodiversity monitoring systems, support the development of community forests, raise public awareness about the Cross River gorilla, and mobilise new funding for conservation.

Participants also agreed on a one-year action plan that includes creating a coordinating secretariat, strengthening communication and storytelling about conservation successes, expanding collaboration with partners in Nigeria, and exploring innovative financing mechanisms such as carbon credit initiatives.

For many of the organisations involved, the workshop represented an important milestone in building stronger partnerships and sharing knowledge across the region.

“Small conservation initiatives working on the ground need to be empowered,” participants noted during the closing session. “By working together through this alliance, we can strengthen our collective capacity to protect the forests and wildlife of the Cross River region.”

Although the challenges facing the Cross River gorilla remain significant, the workshop demonstrated that strong collaboration between conservation organisations and local communities can create real hope for the future of the species.

By protecting forests, strengthening community stewardship, and working together across landscapes and borders, conservationists are taking important steps to ensure that the world’s rarest gorilla continues to survive in the wild.

Protecting the future of the Cross River gorilla requires long-term collaboration, strong community partnerships, and sustained support. The work of organisations such as the African Conservation Foundation, Environment and Rural Development Foundation, and their partners is helping to protect gorilla habitats, strengthen community forest management, and improve wildlife monitoring across this critical landscape.

You can help ensure the survival of the world’s rarest gorilla. By supporting conservation efforts in the Cross River region, you contribute directly to protecting forests, empowering local communities, and safeguarding one of the planet’s most remarkable great apes for future generations.

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Unique to human language is the capacity to flexibly recombine a limited number of sounds into words and hierarchical sequences, generating endlessly new sentences. In contrast, sequence production of other animals appears limited, limiting meaning generation potential. However, studies have rarely quantified flexibility and structure of vocal sequence production across the whole repertoire.

Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany used this approach to examine the structure of vocal sequences in chimpanzees, known to combine calls used singly into longer sequences. Focusing on the structure of vocal sequences, they analysed 4826 recordings of 46 wild adult chimpanzees from Taï National Park in Ivory Coast.

This study revealed that the chimpanzees produced 390 unique vocal sequences. Most vocal units emitted singly were also emitted in two-unit sequences (bigrams), which in turn were embedded into three-unit sequences (trigrams). Bigrams showed positional and transitional regularities within trigrams with certain bigrams predictably occurring in either head or tail positions in trigrams, and predictably co-occurring with specific other units.

From a purely structural perspective, the capacity to organize single units into structured sequences offers a versatile system, which is potentially suitable for expansive meaning generation. Further research must show to what extent these structural sequences signal predictable meanings.

Source: Nature
Photo: Unsplash/ Francesco Ungaro

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Humans impact the physical environment in many ways: logging, poaching, overexploitation and deforestation linked with forest to farm conversion. Changes like these have triggered habitat loss, climate change, soil erosion and landslides. Animal species are disappearing at such unprecedented rate that scientists have labelled the current era ‘Earth’s sixth mass extinction’. In south west Cameroon, one of the most diverse areas in Africa, we are witnessing dramatic population declines and local extinctions of charismatic animals such as Cross River gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants.

To preserve biodiversity in south west Cameroon we need methods effective in monitoring animal population status, thus allowing the development of conservation strategies. This is particularly urgent during this period of multiple crises, such as the corona crisis and Anglophone crisis. Since 2017, there is a conflict in the south west regions of Cameroon, part of the long-standing Anglophone problem.

Instead of researchers setting out camera-traps in the rainforest, local Community Rangers are being trained and employed to carry out activities. 30 Community Rangers from several villages have been equipped with camera-traps and GPS units. The Community Rangers have been selected by the Forest Village Committees themselves.

Training sessions were organised by the African Conservation Foundation and its local partner Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF). Team members explained camtrap research and handling procedures. The basic camera trap anatomy was explained and each participant was getting familiar with battery and memory card placement. The training included a presentation on the objectives of camera trapping, choosing a suitable location for the camera trap, camera trap set-up, camera location, camera spacing in the field, camera trap height, distance of camera trap to animal trail, vegetation clearing around camera trap.

Also, research procedures, the monitoring intervals and checking camera‐traps and data exchange were explained. The training included the hands-on testing and demonstrating the new knowledge in the field.

Each image captures a moment frozen in time as the animals move through their wild habitat. We are using the camera trap data to collect information about population status and to address conservation issues, creating solutions that allow humans and wild animals to coexist in the same areas.

The programme has captured some incredible wildlife so far, including Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees, red river hogs, squirrels and small antelopes. Red river hogs are a wild member of the pig family living in Africa, with most of its distribution in the Guinean and Congolian rainforests. The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee is recognised as the most threatened and least distributed of all the chimpanzee subspecies, and without successful conservation actions, there is a high risk of extinction in the coming decades.

The elusive and critically endangered Cross River gorillas share the same habitat as the chimpanzees. Currently only 2050-300 individuals survive in subpopulations across the Nigerian and Cameroonian border region. They inhabit inaccessible areas such as the steep slopes of the Lebialem highlands.

By maintaining a presence in wildlife conservation through Community Rangers, it was possible to continue monitoring wildlife populations and rainforest habitat, with some challenges and delays as the situation allowed. The projects partners currently work across all the areas they worked in prior to the Anglophone crisis, which also allows us to assist displaced people.

Our Community Camera Trapping activities have been highly successful, directly engaging and training Community Rangers in wildlife monitoring in protected areas and Community Forests, while connecting conservation efforts with community development goals. The programme supports self-governance and local capacity building. With your help, we will be able to expand this programme to other communities and protected areas in west central Africa. Donate now or visit our project website for more information.

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Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), a grassroots NGO and non-profit founded in 2003 promotes biodiversity conservation by enabling people to co-exist with wildlife through integrated programs that improve animal health, community health, and livelihoods in and around Africa’s protected areas and wildlife rich habitats.

Through these programs, we have helped to mitigate these impacts. CTPH worked with Uganda Wildlife Authority and other NGOs to improve great ape viewing guidelines and prevent transmission of COVID-19 between people and gorillas. Park staff, Gorilla Guardians herding gorillas from community land to the park and Village Health and Conservation Teams were trained to put on protective face masks, enforce hand hygiene and a 10-meter great ape viewing distance.

To reduce the communities’ need to poach, CTPH found a UK-based distributor, for its Gorilla Conservation Coffee social enterprise enabling coffee farmers to earn revenue in the absence of tourism and provided fast growing seedlings to reduce hunger in vulnerable community members.

Lessons learned show the need to support non-tourism dependent community livelihoods, and more responsible tourism to the great apes, which CTPH is advocating to governments, donors and tour companies through an Africa CSO Biodiversity Alliance policy brief.

Source: Frontiers in Public Health
Photo by: Isabell Heinrich/Scopio

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Researchers from Oxford Brookes University examined 858 photos posted on Instagram from 2013-2019 under two hashtags — #gorillatrekking and #gorillatracking — and found most gorilla trekking tourists were close enough to the animals, without face masks on, to make transmission of viruses and diseases possible.

Examining the photos from people visiting mountain gorillas in East Africa, lead author and Oxford Brookes University Primate Conservation alumnus Gaspard Van Hamme said: “The risk of disease transmission between visitors and gorillas is very concerning. It is vital that we strengthen and enforce tour regulations to ensure gorilla trekking practices do not further threaten these already imperiled great apes”.

In January 2021, captive gorillas at San Diego Zoo tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, providing evidence that the current pandemic has the potential to also possibly also can affect great apes. Tourists’ photos examined for this research found people were close enough to the animals that disease transmission would be possible.

The importance of wearing face masks

Dr Magdalena Svensson, lecturer in biological anthropology at Oxford Brookes University added: “In the photos we analysed, we found that face masks were rarely worn by tourists visiting gorillas and that brings potential for disease transmission between people and the gorillas they visit. With people all over the world getting more used to wearing face masks we have hope that in the future wearing face masks will become common practice in gorilla trekking.”

Gorilla numbers in the balance

Mountain gorillas are endemic to the East African region. They are present in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Virunga National Park), Uganda (Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park), and Rwanda (Volcanoes National Park). In recent decades, these populations have suffered from the ill effects of human activities but in more recent years gorilla numbers have started to increase and now it is estimated that there are 1,063 individuals.

Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka from Conservation Through Public Health, Uganda, said: “This research provides a valuable perspective on how much tourists are willing to share their too close encounters with mountain gorillas through Instagram, which creates expectations for future tourists. It highlights a great need for responsible tourism to provide adequate protection while minimizing disease transmission, especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Tourism: environment and wildlife

Trekking is an important financial support to mountain gorilla conservation. But large visitor numbers can impact on the wildlife and environment – guidelines to mitigate these include maintaining a minimum distance of 7 metres between visitors and gorillas. The Oxford Brookes study shows that these guidelines are not adequately followed and enforced.

Russell A. Mittermeier, Chair of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, who was not involved in the study, commented: “It has become apparent in the past few years that studies of anthroponotic and zoonotic disease spread are crucial to the field of primate conservation. With that in mind, it is very exciting to see the new research on this topic coming out of the Primate Conservation Group at Oxford Brookes University. While this study focused on one species, the mountain gorilla, the lessons learned are also applicable to many other primate species that are increasingly coming into contact with people. This line of research will certainly become more important in the future.”

The research paper Keep your distance: using Instagram posts to evaluate the risk of anthroponotic disease transmission in gorilla ecotourism is published in People and Nature.

Source: Oxford Brooke University
Pictured: Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei). Photo credit: Mark Jordahl

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The decree, which was signed mid-July, had sparked outrage among local communities and conservation groups. In total 68,385 hectares of virgin forest would be turned into a forest management unit to be auctioned for timber extraction.

Ebo Forest is one of the last intact rainforests in central Africa, rich in biodiversity and home to the indigenous Banen communities who lived in harmony with this forest and its wildlife. Many species are on the Red List of Endangered and Critically Endangered species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Ebo forest is also an important carbon sink, which is important to mitigate climate change.

The elusive Ebo gorilla is possibly a new subspecies of gorilla. The local chimpanzees are a culturally unique population:  they are the only ones in the world that have mastered to use stones for cracking nuts, as well as using long sticks to catch termites.

Conservationists say logging activities will threaten the survival of these critically endangered species. The people of the region denounced the decision, promising to do everything possible to halt and reverse these plans. Dissatisfied, local people decided to launch a petition with the help of Rainforest Rescue and Greenpeace Africa, supported by the African Conservation Foundation and hundreds of other organisations and individuals.

On the 6th of August, Cameroon’s President Paul Biya instructed Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute to withdraw the decree which would allow exploitation of the forest.

Halting logging and exploitation is just a first step. In 2006 the Cameroonian government pledged to turn Ebo Forest into a national park, but this was opposed by local communities who feared their land would become state property. New plans can now be developed for sustainable land-use options and socio-economic activities that generate revenue for Cameroon, supporting the livelihoods of Ebo’s indigenous communities, and protecting this critical rainforest for some of Africa’s most endangered species.

The Congo Basin rainforest covers 200 million hectares, and is the world’s second largest rainforest after the Amazon. Widespread logging threatens these critical ecosystems. Globally tropical forests store carbon emissions produced by humans from the atmosphere, which means they play a major role in slowing global warming and halting climate change.

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The logging concessions would impact one of Africa’s great biodiversity hotspots. Ebo Forest is the habitat of a possible new subspecies of gorilla, as well as a culturally unique population of chimpanzees: the 700 chimpanzees appear to be the only ones in the world that have mastered both cracking nuts using stones and wooden hammers, as well as fishing for termites using long sticks. In other regions, chimpanzees use only one or the other of these techniques.

Over 40 communities in the region have been living in harmony within and around the forest for generations. The forest has ancestral and spiritual significance as a site for traditional rituals, and contains the gravesites of revered community elders. The local people were not consulted or even informed of the government’s intentions, and their rights to their ancestral land were ignored. If realized, the logging concessions would cost local communities their livelihoods and cultural heritage and make them increasingly vulnerable to new emerging diseases.

In its petition, which is addressed to the President of the Republic of Cameroon, Paul Biya, Rainforest Rescue calls on the Cameroonian government to:

• revoke the logging concessions
• protect Ebo forest and fulfill the promise to declare it a national park and
• respect the local population’s traditional rights and the principles of free, prior informed consent (FPIC) and involve them in any future land use planning process.

Rainforest Rescue co-chair Marianne Klute: “If realized, the logging concessions would cause immense social injustice and impact regional ecosystems as well as the climate. Logging opens the door for the wholesale destruction of the environment, as poachers, settlers, and land grabbers pour into the newly opened areas. We need the Cameroonian government to realize its responsibility for this unique and irreplaceable natural treasure.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Cameroon’s #EboForest is home to gorillas, tool-wielding Chimpanzees, Forest Elephants, Presuss’ Red colobus, Drills and many other rare and endangered species. It is one half of the Yabassi #KeyBiodiversityArea, making it a site of global importance to the planet’s overall health. It is also the ancestral land of more than 40 communities that surround it. In a letter to the Cameroonian government, scientists from @global_wildlife_conservation, San Diego Zoo Global Conservation Research Institute, @kewgardens and IUCN Primate Specialist Group, asked the government to suspend plans to create 2 long-term logging concessions in Ebo Forest. They asked that the government develop an inclusive land-use plan with the local communities who would be most affected by logging. Let’s #ProtectEboForest.

A post shared by Leonardo DiCaprio (@leonardodicaprio) on May 5, 2020 at 10:53am PDT

UPDATE

Good news!
Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has ordered the cancellation of logging concessions in the Ebo Forest. A choice for conservation and an example for the world. The rare ebo gorilla and other endangered species can still call this forest home.
Via Regina Fonjia Leke (Broadcast Journalist at Canal 2 International TV)

To view the petition, please visit: https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/petitions/1221/no-to-logging-in-cameroons-ebo-forest

Photo: Francesco Ungaro

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“The illegal wildlife trade is a critical threat to primates in Africa,” said Gregg Tully, PASA Executive Director. “Our member sanctuaries are close to capacity, bringing the situation to a crisis point. We need to use every tool available, including policy and coordinated action on the ground—and that is what Action for Chimpanzees will do.”

Action for Chimpanzees is a broad coalition of PASA and partner organizations, including Akatia, the Chimpanzee Conservation Center, Fondation Brigitte Bardot, Humane Society International, the Jane Goodall Institute, Liberia Chimpanzee Rescue and Protection, Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) Program, and WARA Guinea.

“The illegal wildlife trade for bushmeat and the pet industry is not only a critical threat to our closest living relatives, it is also the source of huge risks for human health at the local and global levels,” said Patrick van Veen, of the Jane Goodall Institute Global. “The awareness and close collaboration of local people, authorities and consumers is fundamental to stop this crisis of unprecedented scale before is too late for all”

The impetus for AFC is the urgent need to reduce trafficking of western chimpanzees, because sanctuaries have seen a significant increase in confiscations in recent years and are close to capacity. While the ultimate goal must be to stop the illegal capture and trade of West African Chimpanzees, the lack of sanctuaries with adequate space to accept confiscated chimps is a key component of wildlife law enforcement that is missing.

“Across Africa, chimpanzees are under threat like never before. It is no exaggeration to say that unless urgent action is taken, our closest genetic cousins could be trafficked into extinction,” said Morris Darbo, Director of Humane Society International/Liberia, which cares for 66 ex-laboratory chimpanzees, some of whom were wild-caught.

Fast Facts:

• There are fewer than 300,000 chimps left in the wild.
• Wild chimpanzees are already extinct in four of their former African-range countries
• Chimp populations continue to decline in the remaining 21 African nations in which they survive. Only 10 of these nations have chimpanzee populations exceeding 1,000.
• Chimps and other primates are killed for bushmeat, a delicacy in many parts of Central and West Africa. The mothers are killed and their babies are sold as pets.

Created in 2000, the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA) is the largest association of wildlife centers and sanctuaries in Africa, consisting of 23 organizations in 13 countries. Each Alliance member is securing the future for Africa’s primates by rescuing and caring for orphaned and abused apes and monkeys, protecting endangered primates from extinction, working to stop the hunting of endangered species and the cruel primate pet trade, educating the public, and empowering communities. PASA International unifies the Alliance and advocates for them on an international scale, provides vital support, and works closely with them to raise awareness globally about threats to wildlife.

Please support Action for Chimpanzees!

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This announcement brings the global wild population of mountain gorillas to 1,063 when combined with the published results from the Virunga Massif 2015/2016 survey. Bwindi – Sarambwe is one of the two places on earth where mountain gorillas can still be found.

“Slowly but surely a solid future for mountain gorillas is emerging, proving that long-term, collaborative conservation efforts can pull species back from the brink of extinction. This was demonstrated last year with the IUCN reclassification from Critically Endangered to Endangered,” said Anna Behm Masozera, Director of the International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP), which provided technical and financial support to the exercise under an agreement with the intergovernmental Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration.

She continued, “While the IGCP coalition celebrates these results, mountain gorillas still face many threats and as a subspecies will always need to be carefully protected and their habitat and tourism well managed. We cannot be complacent, but we can take a moment to acknowledge the efforts and results of the latest census and recognize how far we have come.”

The survey findings also indicated that the threat of illegal human activities to mountain gorillas and other wildlife has not declined in Bwindi-Sarambwe since 2011, despite the positive developments in community engagement, in conservation and tourism initiatives. For instance, survey teams found and destroyed 88 snares during the course of their work.

“It’s remarkable to see that the positive trend for mountain gorillas continues since it was once thought the species might be extinct by the end of the twentieth century,” said Bas Huijbregts, African Species Director, World Wildlife Fund (WWF). “The future for mountain gorillas looks hopeful, but the threats they have endured for years, like civil unrest, poaching, habitat destruction, disease and improper management of tourism, remain. Effective long-term conservation efforts have helped both the Virunga and Bwindi populations increase, and sustaining this incredible result will be contingent on sustaining those efforts.”

The exercise involved more than 75 trained survey members from thirteen participating institutions along with the support of local governments and communities living around the protected areas. Survey teams walked pre-determined “recces” (reconnaissance trails) ensuring a thorough coverage of all forest areas to sweep the Bwindi-Sarambwe and search for signs of gorillas, other key mammals, and human activities. When fresh gorilla signs were detected, the teams followed the gorilla trail to locate three recent night nest sites. At each of these nest sites, the teams collected fecal samples from nests.

The process was completed twice; first from March to May 2018 (62 days), and second from October to December 2018 (60 days). A second sweep helps find gorillas that were undetected during the first sweep and thus provides more reliable numbers of gorillas. Fecal samples were analyzed genetically to determine individual genotypes. Additional scientific publications are expected from the survey.

The survey provides valuable information for the continued monitoring of wildlife populations that depend on the Bwindi-Sarambwe forest ecosystem, as well as the human communities that rely on ecosystem services, tourism benefits and revenue.

IGCP is a coalition program of Conservation International, Fauna & Flora International and WWF with a mission to secure the future for mountain gorillas. IGCP achieves this through working in partnership with State and non-State actors in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda.

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The findings suggest that the origins of our own social systems stretch back to the common ancestor of humans and gorillas, rather than arising from the “social brain” of hominins after diverging from other primates, say researchers.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the study used over six years of data from two research sites in the Republic of Congo, where scientists documented the social exchanges of hundreds of western lowland gorillas.

“Studying the social lives of gorillas can be tricky,” said lead author Dr Robin Morrison, a biological anthropologist from the University of Cambridge. “Gorillas spend most of their time in dense forest, and it can take years for them to habituate to humans.”

“Where forests open up into swampy clearings, gorillas gather to feed on the aquatic vegetation. Research teams set up monitoring platforms by these clearings and record the lives of gorillas from dawn to dusk over many years.”

Some data came from a project in the early 2000s*, but most of the study’s observational data was collected from the Mbeli Bai clearing**, run by the Wildlife Conservation Society, where scientists have recorded gorilla life stories for over 20 years.

Gorillas live in small family units – a dominant male and several females with offspring – or as solitary male “bachelors”. Morrison, who has worked at Mbeli, used statistical algorithms to reveal patterns of interaction between family groups and individuals in the datasets.

By analysing the frequency and length of “associations”, she found hitherto undetermined social layers. Beyond immediate family, there was a tier of regular interaction – an average of 13 gorillas – that maps closely to “dispersed extended family” in traditional human societies e.g. aunts; grandparents; cousins.

Beyond that, a further tier of association involved an average of 39 gorillas, similar to an “aggregated group” that spends time together without necessarily being closely related. “An analogy to early human populations might be a tribe or small settlement, like a village,” said Morrison.

Where dominant males (“silverbacks”) were half-siblings they were more likely to be in the same “tribe”. But over 80% of the close associations detected were between more distantly related – or even apparently unrelated – silverbacks.

“Females spend time in multiple groups throughout their lives, making it possible for males not closely related to grow up in the same natal group, similar to step-brothers,” said Morrison. “The bonds that form may lead to these associations we see as adults.”

“If we think of these associations in a human-centric way, the time spent in each other’s company might be analogous to an old friendship,” she said.

Occasionally, when lots of young males “disperse” from their families at the same time but are not yet ready to strike out on their own, they form “all-male bachelor groups” for a while. The researchers suggest this could be another bond-forming period.

The team uncovered hints of an even higher social tier of “periodic aggregations”, similar to an annual gathering or festival based around “fruiting events”, although these are too infrequent to detect with certainty from this study’s data.

In fact, Morrison and colleagues argue that sporadic fruiting schedules of the gorillas’ preferred foods may be one reason why they – and consequently maybe we – evolved this “hierarchical social modularity”.

“Western gorillas often move many kilometres a day to feed from a diverse range of plants that rarely and unpredictably produce fruit,” said Morrison. “This food is easier to find if they collaborate when foraging.”

“Gorillas spend a lot of their early life in the family group, helping to train them for foraging. Other long-term social bonds and networks would further aid cooperation and collective memory for tracking down food that’s hard to find.”

A small number of mammal species have a similar social structure to humans. These species also rely on “idiosyncratic” food sources – whether forest elephants hunting irregular fruitings, or the mercurial fish schools sought by dolphins – and all have spatial memory centres in their brain to rival those of humans.

Before now, the species on this short list were evolutionarily distant from humans. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees, live in small territorial groups with fluctuating alliances that are highly aggressive – often violent – with neighbours.

As such, one theory for human society is that it required the evolution of a particularly large and sophisticated “social brain” unique to the hominin lineage.

However, Morrison and colleagues say the addition of gorillas to this list suggests the simplest explanation may be that our social complexity evolved much earlier, and is instead merely absent from the chimpanzee lineage.

“The scaling ratio between each social tier in gorillas matches those observed not just in early human societies, but also baboons, toothed whales and elephants,” added Morrison, from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology.

“While primate societies vary a lot between species, we can now see an underlying structure in gorillas that was likely present before our species diverged, one that fits surprisingly well as a model for human social evolution.”

“Our findings provide yet more evidence that these endangered animals are deeply intelligent and sophisticated, and that we humans are perhaps not quite as special as we might like to think.”

Source: University of Cambridge

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