98% Gorilla

Exploring the familiarity and kinship humans have with gorillas and how sacred it is.

A photo of a gorilla taken by my family during our Omaha trip.

98% Gorilla

K.L. Orion

Almost every year on my birthday, I’ve always known what I wanted for presents. With a birthday in August, I usually had a list of numerous strange gifts prepared by early June. Full of anticipation, I had everything ready months in advance. Every year was the same. Every year I was this prepared. So, in theory, when my sweet sixteen rolled around, one would think I’d be especially prepared for this special birthday. Oddly enough, I wasn’t ready at all. Even within a few weeks of the special day, I had little idea of what I wanted for gifts or even how I wanted to spend my birthday. I was completely unorganized. And as the date came creeping up, I began frantically thinking about how I wanted to celebrate such an important occasion. 

Perhaps it’s part of growing up, but I didn’t really want any normal material possessions for this birthday. I didn’t want an average object. Call it greed, call it humility, call it whatever it is, but I wanted something that would have meaning. I wanted something with a purpose. But I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t figure out what that something was. Then one day, I can’t remember how, it dawned on me. Earlier that summer, my family took a trip to Omaha and visited the famous Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. We had a blast. Between giraffes, lemurs, armadillos, and elephants, there was something there to entertain and fascinate everyone. But by far the best and most intimate experience we had there was with the gorillas. 

Gorillas and the other great apes have always intrigued me, but it was in the months leading to the zoo visit that I had truly fallen in love with our simian cousins. It all started with an obsession in animal intelligence, which led me to begin studying our closest relatives. I quickly became completely obsessed with the great apes and our place in the magnificent tree of life. Chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans are all among my favorite animals. But perhaps my favorite of the primates has to be gorillas. I mean, what’s not to love about them? They’re big, strong, powerful, yet gentle. They are tragically misunderstood, thought of as our brutal and idiotic cousins. However, they are both very intelligent and actually fairly gentle. Yes, violence is a part of gorilla culture, but no more so than it is in any other animal’s society. Gorillas are actually surprisingly loving. 

But perhaps the thing I love most about gorillas is the fact that they are so much like us, yet just different enough they are almost alien. Gorillas are 98% human; in other words, they share around 98% of their DNA with us humans. And at the Henry Doorly Zoo, this kinship was clear. Now, I do have mixed emotions about these incredible creatures being kept in captivity, but I was regardless thankful to be able to see them in person. Being around the gorillas was an eye-opening experience. Throughout the rest of the zoo, the animals mostly hid or stayed far away from the viewing areas. Not the gorillas. They were active and almost always in the picture-perfect places in their enclosure. 

I got the incredible opportunity to get really close to multiple individuals. There was a male taking a nap by the glass, not seeming to care much about the hoards of fascinated people crowding around him. For the record, he did choose a place right up against the glass to go to sleep. Another male knuckle-walked his way to the window I was standing at, watching him approach with jaw-dropping astonishment. He came so close that had the glass not been in between us, I wouldn’t have had to lift my hand too far in order to touch him. Then he looked up at me, staring up into my face. I tried to avoid eye contact for the most part, since eye contact can be considered a threat in gorilla society. Still, it was hard not to, and I had to take numerous glances into his beautiful brown eyes. 

It was hard to beat that experience, but there was another instance with a gorilla that had to be even better. There were large glass domes in the enclosures that people could crawl into to get a better view. On one of these domes was a female gorilla, laying sprawled out on the top of it. I got a chance to crawl under with my brother, the two of us amazed beyond words. She pressed her face against the glass, looking down at the humans who gathered beneath her. We stared up at her in wide-eyed wonder, she looked back at us with curiosity. My brother softly tapped the glass where her hand was, prompting the almost human animal to gently tap back. They exchanged this game of tapping for a little while, every moment filling us with child-like joy. 

I think part of the special experience one gets with these gorillas is that they do not behave the same way the other animals in the zoo behave. The other animals typically stay away from the viewers, sitting around and keeping to their own business. However, the gorillas in many cases interacted with us rather than stayed away. They came up to the glass and examined us as much as we examined them. They even played games with the visitors, like my brother’s exchange with the female on the dome. And even when they are just minding their own business, it’s hard not to feel kinship when around them. Seeing them in person really tears down stereotypes that have been implanted into the human mind. 

Many of us associate gorillas and other great apes with monkeys. We know that they are closer to us than any of these other animals, but we don’t really feel that way. Perhaps it’s through cultural indoctrination that we naturally alienate man from the ape, making him better than the animal in every way. What we fail to fully understand is that man is within the ape. It’s that lack of understanding that leads us to think of gorillas more like big monkeys than close human cousins. Just thinking that they are big monkeys doesn’t do them justice. Monkeys are extremely close to us in every right, but your typical monkey doesn’t even compete with the similarities gorillas have with humans. It’s hard to appreciate apes without being around them. 

At the zoo, something became very clear to me. Seeing gorillas in person made me realize just how human they really are. I didn’t feel like I was around a bunch of big monkeys. I felt like I was in the presence of people. The way they moved, the way they acted, even the way they sat and stared off into space daydreaming. Everything about them was just so familiar yet different enough to make me appreciate all the things they were doing that I just consider normal in humans. I recognized our familiarity. I recognized our family. Humans and gorillas are very different, but they are way more similar than they are different. And I love that about them. I recognized how they were 98% human. But even more so, I began thinking maybe I’m just 98% gorilla. Afterall, it’s all just a case of perspective. 

Unfortunately, our gorilla relatives are in danger. Both of the two species of gorilla are endangered. They are losing habitat fast. Poaching has brought their numbers way down. It is possible that in my lifetime one of my favorite cousins might disappear from the world entirely. If not my lifetime, possibly my children’s. I hate to think of a world without these wonderful creatures. I want to preserve them. I want their populations to survive for long after my time. And that’s when I realized what I wanted. I didn’t want an object for my birthday. I wanted to help. 

On my birthday, I got an email from the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. The email contained a virtual adoption certificate for an infant mountain gorilla. He was so young he didn’t even have a name yet. The symbolic adoption represented my family’s contribution to gorilla conservation made on the occasion of my birthday. The adoption certificate was entirely virtual, containing information about my new gorilla family member. All of it was virtual, meaning the money we sent in likely all went straight to conservation rather than being wasted on other trinkets or physical objects to commemorate the adoption. Looking at the little gorilla’s face fills me with joy and satisfaction, knowing that we might’ve helped preserve a species for the future. I’m getting updates on my little gorilla guy, and I am currently waiting in anticipation for this Friday, when a ceremony will finally give my little buddy a name. Donating to a good cause fills you with a kind of joy that few other things can give, and I’m especially glad that I had the opportunity to give back to gorillas. I am, after all, 98% gorilla.