Gabon’s Loango National Park is home to a group of western lowland gorillas that have become accustomed to biologists who have studied them for almost 20 years. This documentary presents an intimate look at a silverback and his family featuring a newborn baby gorilla. Forest elephants and buffalos enter the story along with brave researchers hoping to preserve one of the last remaining wild coasts in the African tropics.
S42 Ep9
Gorilla
Get an intimate look at a silverback family in Gabon’s Loango National Park. Meet a newborn gorilla, forest elephants, buffalos and brave researchers in one of the last remaining wild coasts in the African tropics.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
GORILLA
NARRATED BY
DEBRA WILSON
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY
HARALD POKIESER
PHOTOGRAPHED BY
STEPHAN KRASSER
CAMERA ASSISTANTS & DRONE
JOHANNES BERGER
FLORIAN LORENZ
EDITED BY
JÖRG ACHATZ
MUSIC COMPOSED BY
DAVID MITCHAM
DUBBING MIX
MATTHIAS ERMERT
SOUND DESIGN & FOLEYS
SIMON PROKSCH
OTGER KUNERT
GRAPHICS
CHRISTINE PUCHNER
MARK BECKMANN
COLORIST
RAIMUND SIVETZ
SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR
MARTHA ROBBINS
SPECIAL THANKS
ARMAND EKOMBA
VERA FUCHS
HERMANN LANDRY
LEONEL RICHI MOUAMBA
LOCATION MANAGER
GRACE NTAHINTA
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
MARIELLA BLEIMUTH
POST-PRODUCTION MANAGER
ANITA PFEFFINGER
PRODUCTION MANAGERS
DAVID STEINBACH
TONI NEMETH
LINE PRODUCERS
ROMAN LANDAUER
DINAH CZEZIK-MÜLLER
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
SABINE HOLZER
BIRGIT PETERS
FOR NATURE
SERIES EDITOR
JANET HESS
SENIOR PRODUCER
LAURA METZGER LYNCH
SUPERVISING PRODUCER
JAYNE JUN
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
JAMES F. BURKE
LEGAL COUNSEL
BLANCHE ROBERTSON
DIGITAL LEAD
DANIELLE BROZA
DIGITAL PRODUCER
AMANDA SCHMIDT
SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR
KAREN HO
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
CHELSEY SAATKAMP
BUDGET CONTROLLER
JAYNE LISI
ONLINE EDITOR
STACEY DOUGLASS MOVERLEY
RE-RECORDING MIXERS
ED CAMPBELL
JON BERMAN
ORIGINAL SERIES PRODUCTION FUNDING PROVIDED IN PART BY
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Arnhold Foundation
The Fairweather Foundation
Kate W. Cassidy Foundation
Charles Rosenblum
Kathy Chiao and Ken Hao
Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III
Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation
Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust
Gregg Peters Monsees Foundation
Koo and Patricia Yuen
Sandra Atlas Bass
SERIES PRODUCER
BILL MURPHY
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
FRED KAUFMAN
A PRODUCTION OF TERRA MATER STUDIOS IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH THE WNET GROUP AND DOCLIGHTS/NDR NATURFILM IN ASSOCIATION WITH NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL, PRODUCED BY COSMOS FACTORY
THIS PROGRAM WAS PRODUCED BY THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC, WHICH IS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS CONTENT.
© 2022 TERRA MATER STUDIOS GMBH
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL © 2024 THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FUNDING
Series funding for Nature is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Arnhold Family in memory of Henry and Clarisse Arnhold, The Fairweather Foundation, Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, Charles Rosenblum, Kathy Chiao and Ken Hao, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation, Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust, Gregg Peters Monsees Foundation, Koo and Patricia Yuen, Sandra Atlas Bass, and public television viewers.
TRANSCRIPT
♪♪ NARRATOR: Deep in a tropical rainforest, there is a search for giants.
ROBBINS: All you see are the shadows.
They hear you coming, and they just flee.
♪♪ NARRATOR: These are western lowland gorillas, and, today, they have reason to be shy.
They've just welcomed a new member to the group.
♪♪ Hours old, this baby will join an extended family.
♪♪ ROBBINS: Gorillas are known to come together and form these huddles, and there will be lots of kids playing.
NARRATOR: For these two brothers, there is no shortage of adventure, and someone is always keeping watch.
♪♪ Follow along for a rare look at life in this troop of forest giants.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Gabon, in Western Africa, is something of a miracle.
♪♪ 90% of the land is covered in rainforest.
♪♪ Far from villages and paths, mysterious giants roam the depths of this green labyrinth.
♪♪ Western lowland gorillas.
They are the stuff of legend and are rarely seen in the wild.
♪♪ This is Kamaya, the group's leader.
♪♪ [ Gorillas barking ] The silverback is still in control, but tensions are becoming evident.
♪♪ ♪♪ The family often naps for hours.
♪♪ But today is different.
A female has withdrawn from the group.
♪♪ Mokebo is expecting a baby, a precious new addition to the forest of the giants.
♪♪ A 620-mile stretch of coast along the Atlantic marks the western boundary of the Loango National Park.
♪♪ Channels and coastal forests soon give way to savannas that stretch far inland.
Here, large, sandy, elevated plains are covered in grass, a welcome feast for herds of African forest buffalo.
♪♪ The forest elephants will occasionally venture out into the grasslands.
However, their natural habitat remains the abundant rainforest.
♪♪ Gabon's Loango National Park covers almost 600 square miles of equatorial rainforest.
It's part of one of the world's largest rainforests.
♪♪ Scientists from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, have worked here since 2005.
They've undertaken a long-term study -- to learn all they can about the lowland gorillas who inhabit the rainforests of Western Africa.
After years of painstaking fieldwork, the study has achieved a significant milestone -- a family of gorillas has grown accustomed to the presence of humans.
Even so, the great apes are hard to find.
Getting to the gorilla habitat is challenging.
Having crossed the brackish water of the lagoon, the team has to make its way through the mangroves.
Primatologist Martha Robbins is the project's supervisor.
Every year, she spends four weeks with the team, joining volunteers, students, and local trackers during their daily work.
Martha immediately notices that something is different when the gorillas disappear into the undergrowth.
A quick look tells her everything she needs to know.
Mokebo, the shy female, is cradling her newborn in her arms.
♪♪ The baby gorilla is just a few hours old and must have been born in the middle of the night.
♪♪ ♪♪ The new arrival is an exciting surprise for the team.
Female gorillas rarely show signs of pregnancy.
♪♪ The first hours of a young gorilla's life are something special.
Even Kamaya is on his best behavior.
Among lowland gorilla groups, all newborns are direct descendants of the silverback, the dominant male.
As the family gathers around Kamaya, the proud father stands guard.
ROBBINS: I just feel so privileged to have seen gorillas grow up, where a baby's born and then becomes a dominant silverback, or seeing a female born and then seeing her have her first kid and her next.
And, you know, going out and seeing that brand-new baby was still such a thrill.
That's from a personal standpoint, but also, as a scientist, we're still learning a lot, and being able to combine the two is -- yeah, it's just amazing.
[ Chuckles ] NARRATOR: The researchers have named this family group the Atananga Group.
ROBBINS: Kamaya's a very good leader of his group.
He's calm, but he's also -- I would say he's -- he is in control.
He's very vigilant, he's always watching what else is going on.
And I think he has, like, a very good model of leadership to be in charge of his group.
He keeps track of his kids and so forth.
But, yeah, he's got a really lovely personality.
NARRATOR: The core of the group consists of the silverback and the mothers of his offspring.
Females fathered by the silverback leave the group once they mature, which prevents incest.
They will eventually join forces with another solitary gorilla or with a different group.
Young males are forced to leave as teenagers.
The silverbacks will not tolerate rivals for their position.
Waka is 10 years old and will probably spend another four or five years with the family.
Owegely is 6, giving him another decade or so with the group.
Once on their own, the young males roam the forest, hoping to eventually form their own little group.
Malumbi is just 1 year old and faces an uncertain future.
Nobody knows how long Kamaya will be able to lead or maintain the group.
The departure of the offspring means that lowland gorilla groups are smaller and not as stable as those of their relatives, the mountain gorillas.
If Kamaya dies, the group will dissolve.
[ Gorillas barking ] Lowland gorillas are only found in Western Africa's tropical rainforests.
Their habitats consist of a mosaic of different ecosystems.
♪♪ The Loango National Park is shaped by water, with shallow lagoons covering hundreds of square miles.
♪♪ The islands of forest are separated by mangroves, swamps, and rivers that spring from distant hills and meander towards the Atlantic.
The rivers are lined by reeds and many different trees, which makes for shifting, unpredictable banks.
♪♪ In contrast, the savannas, which lie a few feet above the wetlands, offer stability -- during the dry season, at least.
♪♪ African forest buffalos are only found in the tropics of Western Africa.
Growing to weights of some 600 pounds, they're only half the weight of their savanna relatives.
The buffalos inhabit the outer edges of the rainforest but spend much of their time in the savannas.
The red river hogs also graze here.
They are, without a doubt, one of the most striking members of the pig family.
Each group consists of around a dozen animals, led by a male known as a boar.
Tails held high, a group of red-capped mangabeys roam the grasslands looking for food.
These primates make their home in the tropical coastal forests of the Atlantic, living in large groups and working their way through the local plants, eating seeds, buds, roots, leaves, and fungi.
The forest elephants are no less distinctive, but a few sizes larger.
Long a subject of scientific debate, genetic analysis has determined that African forest elephants are a distinct species.
In the afternoon, families gather to feast on the grasses of the savanna.
Forest elephants are smaller than their regional relatives, the African bush elephants.
Their ears are less prominent, and their tusks are straighter, which prevents them from getting snagged in the dense forest undergrowth.
♪♪ ♪♪ The elephants are neighbors to another jungle giant.
♪♪ The lowland gorillas.
♪♪ Early in the morning, the gorillas leave their sleeping places in the treetops and seek out the nearest source of food.
It is not entirely clear who is leading the group, but the mothers bring up the rear with their offspring.
Baby gorillas travel on their mothers' backs for the first two years of their lives.
Malumbi already knows how to hold on tight, but the newborn is still helpless.
♪♪ The length of the breakfast journey depends on the season.
Fresh bark is a delicacy, even if removing the strips from the branches requires patience.
The portions are small, so it's hardly surprising that gorillas spend six hours a day eating.
There is no shortage of fresh, luscious vegetation, but gorillas are picky eaters.
Fresh blossoms are in high demand.
80% of their tasty snacks consist of water, so gorillas rarely need to drink.
Much of what we know about the western lowland gorillas is thanks to Martha Robbins and her team, who spent eight years in the jungle attempting to win the trust of the shy apes.
This took patience and perseverance.
ROBBINS: In the beginning, I sort of joke, all you see are the shadows of gorillas.
They hear you coming, and they just flee.
They just -- they just run away.
They do a lot of what's called barking.
They're these alarm barks that they give.
[ Gorilla barks ] And then, gradually, over time, you can get a little bit closer, and they become more tolerant.
They'll start climbing trees when you're present, and that's okay, and then, eventually, they'll let you walk with them.
And then it's almost like this invisible boundary between the gorillas and you gets shorter and shorter.
A lot depends on kind of the disposition of the silverback.
Some are much more laid-back or tolerant than others, and so Kamaya, the silverback in our group, he was quite calm from the very beginning.
NARRATOR: The process of acclimating the gorilla group to humans took five years.
The local trackers were an essential part of the process.
The men from the Babongo people live in Waka, a wilderness at the heart of Gabon, three days journey from the Loango National Park.
These men and their families grew up in the rainforests and are very familiar with the gorillas.
Tracking is an essential part of their education.
This gorilla is named after the men's home -- Waka.
The 10-year-old male has discovered a termite nest.
Some gorillas will eat insects, but Waka is clearly not one of them.
In fact, Waka seems somewhat confused by the insects and their home and soon turns his attention to the more familiar leaves.
Apart from an occasional snack of ants or termites, gorillas are vegetarians.
Young gorillas and mature females eat around 30 pounds of vegetation a day.
Silverbacks manage an impressive 55 pounds a day.
Fruits, like figs and nuts, provide a large portion of the required vitamins and nutrients - but a little physical activity is necessary to reach them.
♪♪ Mokebo has clambered up a 60-foot-tall fig tree, clutching her newborn baby.
It is a risky undertaking.
The baby is still too small to hold on safely to its mother.
♪♪ ♪♪ A week after its birth, the infant's skin is now covered in a layer of soft fur.
♪♪ ♪♪ Ambia sits nearby with her own baby.
Malumbi is curious and tries to get at the figs, but the enticing fruits are a long way away.
♪♪ Young gorillas pay close attention to their mothers but become increasingly independent as they grow.
♪♪ ♪♪ Finally, the fig is hers.
♪♪ At around 9 months of age, they begin to experiment with solid foods.
This will be one of the first figs of the young gorilla's life.
♪♪ A handful of fur and the journey can begin.
♪♪ For little Malumbi, acrobatics like this are all in a day's work.
Mokebo and her newborn, on the other hand, still have to navigate the treetops carefully.
ROBBINS: Seeing Mokebo this first week with the newborn, she's just been doing a wonderful job taking care of the baby.
You know, the idea of climbing 30 meters up with a brand-new baby... You know, in humans, we would -- [ Laughs ] You know, you would never think about doing that, but she needs to eat, and needs to do what everybody else is doing.
But, you know, she'll climb a bit and then stop and readjust and keep going.
So, yeah, they are both good mothers.
♪♪ NARRATOR: Gorillas are easygoing creatures, often resting in the undergrowth for two or three hours after eating.
♪♪ The adults lie in a loose group a few feet from each other.
Waka, however, has other plans.
It is time to investigate the new arrival to the family.
♪♪ ♪♪ Our emotional connection to these animals can be explained using cold, hard facts -- humans and gorillas differ in just 1.8% of our genetic makeup.
♪♪ The behavior of 1-year-old Malumbi will appear familiar to many human parents.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Eventually, Ambia has had enough of her toddler's antics and gently but firmly makes the playful young gorilla calm down.
♪♪ The peace doesn't last.
Before long, Waka and Owegely are engaged in an energetic game.
♪♪ Lowland gorillas have a lot of space at their disposal.
Their habitat covers five Western African countries and around 370,000 square miles, more than the surface area of France.
♪♪ ♪♪ The forest feels vast, but protected areas, like these in Gabon, are receding.
♪♪ ♪♪ The baby gorillas spend a lot of time sleeping.
It is a peaceful but also a dangerous early life.
Many gorilla babies die at a young age as a result of disease or injury.
For their first six months, they are entirely dependent on their mother's milk for survival.
♪♪ The forest elephants inhabit the same territory as the gorillas, but many venture out into the savannas in the afternoon.
They congregate to eat grass but also to maintain social contact with other elephants that spend much of their lives scattered throughout the dense forests.
Gabon's national parks are important refuges for both the gorillas and the elephants.
From Congo to Cameroon, thousands of animals are killed each year by poachers.
In Gabon, however, the elephants are protected by military-trained personnel as part of an elaborate and extremely successful conservation effort.
According to a recent census, the country is home to 95,000 forest elephants - two thirds of all the forest elephants in the world.
They are threatened by extinction, and Gabon is their last island of safety.
The country is almost as large as Italy but only thinly populated.
90% of its surface area is covered by rainforests.
The elephants roam the jungle along a network of paths they have carved through the trees, always following the availability of food.
They consume hundreds of pounds of vegetation and large amounts of fruit.
This has a beneficial effect on the rainforest, as they help to spread the seeds of the fruit trees.
The elephants are an essential part of the local ecosystem.
But they can pose a threat to the humans who live in the remote villages here.
People are frequently attacked in the forest, and forest elephants will occasionally destroy entire plantations.
This can prove fatal for local villagers, as Emile, a member of the Max Planck team, explains.
MAPOLO: [ Speaking native language ] INTERPRETER: The behavior of the elephants and the life of the people in our villages changed.
Before, the elephants were far away, but, today, we have them really close to our villages, because now they are more protected by the Park.
They come to eat the food we plant in our lands.
They eat plants like bananas during the night, and when we go out the next morning, we find that they already ate everything.
But there's nothing we can do.
We can just look at them.
♪♪ NARRATOR: Emile and his friends from Waka share a camp with the biologists at the heart of the gorilla territory.
♪♪ Though work days are long and arduous, there can still be time and energy for some friendly competition.
And camaraderie is important to everyone's well-being in such a remote place.
[ Men shouting ] The camp is a jungle outpost, without a bathroom or running water, but it's home to students from all over the world who work with the trackers to document every moment of the gorillas' lives and the lives of those they share the forest with.
Video-camera traps are an important tool for the team's research efforts.
♪♪ But the most studied and documented gorillas in the world live some 1,200 miles east of the research site in Gabon.
♪♪ The Virunga Mountains are in the border regions between Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda, and they are home to mountain gorillas.
[ Gorillas grunting ] The differences between these mountain gorillas and the lowland gorillas are one of the central aspects of Martha Robbins' work.
ROBBINS: Mountain gorillas live at 2,000 meters, 3,000 meters.
They have very warm coats.
[ Laughs ] You just look at them, and they have a lot more hair.
A mountain gorilla would be so hot here.
It would be very, very uncomfortable.
NARRATOR: Unlike in the Virunga Mountains, much of the food the lowland gorillas eat is found in the treetops -- leaves, fruit, buds, and blossoms.
As a result, the lowland gorillas are much better climbers than their mountain relatives.
♪♪ It is an evolutionary marvel.
Gorillas weighing up to 330 pounds have mastered living and foraging at dizzying heights.
♪♪ ♪♪ The experts from the Max Planck Institute are able to compare the two gorilla species very closely, as they have also spent decades studying mountain gorillas in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
ROBBINS: Mountain gorillas climb some, but less.
Like, in Bwindi, they climb about half that, and they're not quite as agile as the western gorillas are.
There might be some morphological differences in their hands and feet that are related to this difference in climbing, but we still have to discover that.
NARRATOR: It soon becomes evident that mountain gorillas are not particularly sure-footed.
♪♪ ♪♪ The heavy silverbacks, in particular, are prone to falling, which can prove fatal.
♪♪ As they descend, young mountain gorillas bear a certain resemblance to acrobats in a circus -- or maybe to clowns.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ The habitat of the mountain gorillas is very different from the rainforests of Gabon.
Here in Uganda, the jungle grows on steep slopes.
There are clearly defined dry seasons and large meadows rather than swamps.
The biologists have studied both species to determine how much energy they expend on finding food.
Mountain gorillas have a more leisurely life.
Their food is easier to access.
This has direct consequences.
The mountain gorillas become sexually mature at an earlier age and produce more offspring.
Death rates among mountain gorillas are lower.
The social lives of the mountain gorillas are also different.
Silverbacks will tolerate the presence of other males in their groups, and physical contact is more common.
♪♪ ROBBINS: Mountain gorillas are known to kind of come together.
After feeding for a few hours, they come together and form these huddles, and they'll groom each other, and there'll be lots of kids playing.
♪♪ With western gorillas, they kind of master -- they're the masters of social distancing.
The mothers are very social with their kids.
They groom their kids.
The juveniles and the infants play with each other, but the adults really aren't -- they don't interact with each other.
NARRATOR: While their mountain cousins will often huddle together, the lowland gorillas prefer to keep their distance while resting.
♪♪ The coastline of the Loango National Park is one of the last apparently untouched beaches in the African tropics.
A natural watercourse separates the sea from the forest and is a popular destination for the local elephants.
♪♪ From here, the pachyderms enjoy a leisurely stroll down to the beach.
♪♪ ♪♪ There is no hurry.
In fact, the slow pace serves an important purpose.
The salty water helps to remove annoying parasites.
♪♪ As a rule, solitary elephants like this are bulls, who leave their families behind once they mature.
♪♪ The groups consist of cows and their offspring.
♪♪ In the late afternoon, the beach fills up with hundreds of elephants that come from the savannas and forests to eat.
The white secretion around the eyes is a sign of a contagious disease that is common in Loango.
Many elephants come here to eat the sand, which provides valuable minerals.
Displays of strength can be playful -- or a sign of distress.
Forest elephants are shy animals.
Even a careful cinematographer can sometimes be too close for comfort.
♪♪ ♪♪ The next defensive stage is a feinted attack.
[ Elephant roaring ] [ Elephant trumpets ] ♪♪ The threatening behavior is usually enough to see off a potential threat.
If not, the elephant may really attack.
[ Elephant grumbling ] ♪♪ ♪♪ This time, fortunately, the elephant decides to retreat.
♪♪ ♪♪ The African forest buffalos arrive at the coast.
[ Egrets squawking ] Accompanied by a flock of cattle egrets, the buffalos tuck in to the grass.
Close to the Atlantic, the vegetation is softer and more nutritious than the inland varieties.
Mature male forest buffalos will remain part of the herd.
Young male African buffalos, on the other hand, form gangs of bachelors.
The coastal wilderness stretches far beyond Loango National Park, eventually reaching Southern Congo.
For hundreds of miles, there are no roads or settlements.
♪♪ And yet, even here, plastic waste is a problem.
♪♪ The strip of refuse is as long as the once-pristine beach itself.
♪♪ All along the Atlantic coast, trash is carried into the sea by rivers from many countries.
Much of it is then washed back up onto dry land here in Gabon.
At high tide, the waste collects on elevated sections of beach, creating a strip of plastic and driftwood 60-feet wide.
♪♪ Forest buffalos and forest elephants find themselves up to their knees in garbage.
Loango Beach has become a symbol of human carelessness and environmental pollution.
♪♪ Fortunately, the elephants are clever and avoid eating the plastic as they search the patch of land for seagrass and other plants.
♪♪ Just a few feet farther inland, plastic trash vanishes.
♪♪ The young elephant is just a few weeks old.
Like all babies, it needs sufficient rest.
♪♪ ♪♪ Unlike the elephants, the gorillas rarely venture all the way to the coast, as it provides insufficient food and shelter.
However, they do enjoy the shores of the lagoon.
They are home to the few open clearings in the rainforest, the former sites of settlements that were cleared when the national park was established.
Nature is now reclaiming the clearings with bushes and young trees with soft, fresh leaves.
Several weeks have passed since the birth of the baby gorilla.
♪♪ He is clearly making progress, as are the other young primates.
♪♪ Malumbi takes his first steps away from his mother 50 feet above the forest floor.
♪♪ Ambia is understandably concerned and holds out her arm as support.
♪♪ Practice will eventually make perfect.
♪♪ The brave young gorilla returns to safety.
♪♪ ♪♪ It will take some time before the newest member of the family group will attempt anything like that.
At this age, the young gorilla struggles to keep his head up.
Slowly but surely, he's getting there, for a few seconds at a time, at least.
So far, the baby remains unnamed.
The honor of naming the gorillas is usually given to the local trackers from Waka.
However, the men wait for some time to make sure that the baby is healthy and likely to survive.
Finally, the moment arrives.
The youngest member of the Atananga group of gorillas is named Etshutshuku, which translates roughly as "The Surprise."
♪♪ Darkness falls early along the equator.
By 6:00 p.m., the sun has disappeared.
It's time to celebrate the new baby gorilla.
♪♪ In Gabon, and particularly among the Babongo people, music is an essential part of any celebration.
It's played on a traditional stringed instrument known as a musical bow.
[ Bow plays ] ♪♪ Then, a song that celebrates the old silverback Kamaya and his growing family.
[ Man speaking in native language ] [ People singing in native language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ One year later, at the beginning of March, the first rains begin to fall.
[ Gorillas barking ] The Atananga group roams the forest.
And, somewhere, two young gorillas should be playing together.
♪♪ Malumbi has grown significantly.
He remains closely attached to his mother but is now far more mobile.
Etshutshuku will be 1 year old now -- if he has survived.
♪♪ He has.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ The baby gorilla is now Malumbi's favorite companion, whether he likes it or not.
♪♪ Malumbi wins every play fight easily, but this doesn't seem to bother his little opponent.
♪♪ ♪♪ Recent estimates suggest that around 300,000 western lowland gorillas are surviving in Africa's rainforests.
In the Virunga Mountains and in Uganda, the home of the mountain gorillas, the numbers are significantly different.
[ Gorillas grunting ] The entire world population is little more than 1,000.
ROBBINS: With mountain gorillas, where there's only a thousand in two small habitats, it's very easy for people to understand that's a critical situation, and they require a lot of attention.
And the fact that the number of mountain gorillas has doubled in decades -- in the past few decades -- is amazing, whereas here, we have a few hundred thousand of them over a massive landscape.
so I think, for a lot of people, it's easy to say, you know, "Well, what's the problem?"
NARRATOR: The problem is that a large number of the western lowland gorillas live outside conservation areas, where they are hunted and their natural habitat, the rainforest, is shrinking.
♪♪ ROBBINS: It's estimated that there is an annual decline of 3% per year.
And imagine you had an investment that was declining by 3%, you had a bank account that, every year, you lost 3%.
You would probably change a bank.
[ Laughs ] You know?
That's not a good deal.
And so it could mean that, in three decades -- you know, so while all of us are still alive -- we could have literally only a few thousand left.
♪♪ NARRATOR: In the depths of the apparently never-ending jungles of Gabon, it is hard to believe that these gorillas are in danger.
♪♪ However, most of the world's lowland gorillas live in the Congo basin, where the forests are being destroyed at a terrifying rate.
♪♪ In addition, poverty and hunger leave local inhabitants little choice but to hunt illegally.
Gorillas are a profitable target.
♪♪ ♪♪ There is no one-stop solution for saving endangered species, but there are a number of examples of best practices.
If all of the world's rainforests were as well-protected as those in Gabon, there would be no need to worry about these wonderful giants of the forest.
♪♪ [ Gorilla barking ] Gabon is not a wealthy country, but it is a beautiful one.
And it has made a commitment to protect a large part of its biological richness.
It's a brave choice.
Long may its people and remarkable wildlife find a fulfilling future together.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ To learn more about what you've seen on this "Nature" program, visit pbs.org.
♪♪