Umbrella like a parachute

The lowland gorilla and northern hairless ibis not only share a black color, both species are critically endangered. But if the gorilla has attracted the attention of the world community at least since the time of the famous zoologist and behavioral researcher Dian Fossey, then the bird is the size of a chicken, black and (with all due respect) rather ugly, it does not care much. Celebrities among the endangered species even have their own name: “umbrella species”. In a figurative sense, the gorilla opens an umbrella under which many other species, the “money umbrella” and the “space umbrella” can find a place. Thanks to his charisma, the gorilla manages to get a lot of money donated to his defense. Money that also benefits many other less attractive animals in the home of the gorillas. If the gorilla’s home, the Central African rainforest, is protected, all species living there will benefit.

“Space umbrella” means that a lot of space is needed to effectively protect the gorillas. Since gorillas are large and live in family groups, this makes sense to many people. In turn, inconspicuous species benefit from this. The larger the protected area for gorillas, the more various small animals are preserved (some of them live only on a tree). But: Zoos also need to maintain reserve populations for umbrella species, because even with charismatic species, protection does not work well enough.

Year after year, the gorilla population decreases by four percent, so within three generations, 80 percent of the original population will disappear. If this continues, there will soon be no more gorillas left in the wild. But releasing gorillas into the wild is currently out of the question. In protected areas, gorillas feel good – but there are not enough such areas. However, outside these safe havens, gorillas are worried about Ebola, hunting and habitat destruction. Since the causes of the threat cannot be eliminated, releasing animals into the wild is often impractical. Of course, there are various examples of large mammal species returning to the wild from zoos.

A prime example is the Zurich black rhinoceros Olmoti, who was born at the Zurich Zoo in 2014 and now lives in Africa. In all cases, animals need space, and this is becoming less and less with the growth of the world’s population. Over the past 60 years, the population of Switzerland has grown from 5.3 million to 8.7 million. An increase of more than 60 percent. This population growth also means that there is less and less room for nature in Switzerland, especially for large mammals. An impressive example is the intense debate about how much wolves densely populated Switzerland can tolerate. In the same 60 years, the population of Gabon, the gorilla’s main range, grew by 367 percent, from about 0.5 million to over 2.3 million. From these figures, you can imagine how difficult it is to create better protected areas for the protection of the umbrella species of the lowland gorilla – even if there is an urgent need for this.

Source: Blick