Once in their adult stage, males will split off from their initial troop/family unit to travel alone to begin amassing their own harem of females and thus start their own family. Immature gorillas, called blackbacks due to the absence of sterling shades, are known to form their own troop attached to the original group until one either challenges the alpha, are expelled by the silverback beating his chest with cupped hands, bearing his teeth and charging at the intruder/contender or leave on their own accord in search of a nomadic troop they can call their own. Despite this formidable exhibition of strength and size, mountain gorillas are quite gentle, shy and social animals, which form tight-knitted, affectionate and tender societies, often hugging and playing with each other. While both subspecies can climb trees and make nests out of branches and leaves to protect their young at early stages, lowland gorillas have frequently been observed to travel through the trees as well as searching for food such as stripped bark, leaves, stems, fruits and insects to fulfill their 45 pounds a day diet regime. A rare delicatessen adored by lowland gorillas are bamboo shoots, ants and termites. They break open the nests and delicately insert a stick to get to the crunchy larvae.

Most importantly, gorillas, lowland and mountain, are considered critically endangered which have traditionally been hunted for skins and meat for local consumption despite being illegal. Furthermore due to their location in turbulent war ridden areas, these majestic herbivores are often collateral damage of civil war in addition to poaching and trophy hunting. Exemplified on the canvas by steaks, weapons, screeching ammunition, tormenting/piercing rattles and dollar signs of monetary gain. Like a bad omen, humans are the only living threat to gorillas, as we flush them out from their habitat repurposing it as farming land and consequently justify killing them because they can consume/destroy a whole harvest in a day. Did we not learn from our history? Doesn't this seem all too familiar? Can we not see this is no different from 1885-1886 misappropriation of land against what some thought to be savages and uncivilised people? Have we not learnt from the error in our ways since 500BC?