Gorillas are social climbers, carefully clambering up to feed in the forest canopy, then slide down!

On #WorldGorillaDay, 24th September, let's celebrate what the late #DianFossey used to refer to as "the greatest of the great apes".
Despite their size, #gorillas can clamber and swing their way to to top of rainforest giants, up to 40m above the ground? This is usually because the trees are fruiting. And who planted those mighty trees? Very likely the ancestors of today's gorillas who ate the fruit and pooped the seed the next day, which then germinated in a pile of first class organic fertiliser - that's the #positivepowerofPOO! So protecting gorillas today is also protecting the trees of tomorrow - #GardenersoftheForest.
Gorillas are second only to elephants in their importance as seed dispersal agents in the 10 African countries where they live, from Nigeria across the Congo Basin to Rwanda and Uganda. These clips of arboreal behaviour show the largest sub-species, Grauer's or Eastern Lowland Gorillas, in #KahuziBiegaNationalPark, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). First we see a blackback male swinging on a small tree like an orangutan, using it to reach a larger tree trunk to ascend into the canopy where a silverback is also clambering with impressive agility. Then on a different day, we filmed the whole group feeding in the treetop, but we were uphill from the base of the tree, so on the same level as the gorillas with a spectacular view of the forest beyond. Then a couple of examples of the methods used to descend - some carefully clamber, others slide down the trunk like a giant firefighter's pole!