Gorillas are called "gentle giants" and there is a reason behind it. There are some gorilla species that are endangered but efforts have made to save these kind-hearted animals who share 98.3 percent of their genetic code with humans.
A video went viral on social media in which a gorilla at a zoo in New South Wales appears to tend to an injured bird and encourage the little one to fly. The gorilla displayed a heart-melting kindness when he approached the stationary bird and tried to interact with it.
In the video, the gorilla lies down next to the bird for a closer look and then gently touches it many times, prompting one observer to say that it "looks like he is trying to get it to go". Later, when the small bird flutters its wings and the gorilla goes away, a woman says in the video: "How awesome was that"?
The uploader of the video noted in the description that "While visiting the gorilla enclosure at the zoo [on November 10], one of the gorillas noticed an injured bird. It walked over to the bird and tried very gently to get the bird to fly away. When the bird didn't fly away, the gorilla walked away without ever harming it. It was amazing such a big animal could be so gentle."
Maybe it was a gesture of compassion which is very common in gorillas who live in complex social groups, display individual personalities, and display emotions. Such social animals are losing their homes, thanks to deforestation. For decades they have been subjected to uncontrolled hunting, disease, habitat loss, and the ravages of human conflict, and now many of the species are included in the endangered list.
The Kind-Hearted Endangered Species of the World
They display many humanlike behaviors, even emotions like laughter and grief. But what went wrong is along with the development they continue to lose their habitat, their population decreased and now many of the gorilla species are labeled as endangered. The largest of the great apes, gorillas are stocky animals with broad chests and shoulders, human-like hands, and small eyes.
The two gorilla species in equatorial Africa, separated by about 560 miles of Congo Basin forest. As their population has been decreasing for decades, a 2010 United Nations report suggested that they may disappear from large parts of the Congo Basin by the mid-2020s. But efforts made by the World Wild Fund and other animal welfare organizations, as well as government agencies their situation now is different from what expected.
As per WWF, "New protected areas are being designated for some gorilla populations, and the population of mountain gorillas has continued to increase in recent years, leading to its downlisting from Critically Endangered to Endangered in November 2018."
However, many gorilla populations have declined or completely disappeared in the past few decades. While mountain gorillas are the only gorillas to show an increase in numbers, the overall population size is still very low.
