During the dry season (June – August), the gorillas travel a lot, moving between fruiting trees and the swamps, making it the most difficult time to visit them. The best time to visit the gorillas in Loango is January – May, when they do not travel very much per day. These rules are designed to minimize the impact that humans have on the gorillas. We maintain a minimum distance of 7m between the gorillas and people at all times. Tourist visits in Loango are limited to one group of 4 people per day, three days per week. Visiting the habituated gorillas in Loango National Park is a unique experience. The Atananga Group has been habituated since 2014, with tourism beginning in 2016. This refers to the process, where through daily peaceful contact with humans, gorillas have slowly lost their strong fear of humans and have learned to view them as neutral beings in their environment. Gorillas that are visited by people have undergone ‘habituation’. Despite gorillas being the largest primate species, it is difficult to see them in forest because they are naturally afraid of humans and typically will flee or aggressively charge if people get too close to them. One group of gorillas, the Atananga Group, is habituated for both tourism and research. Loango National Park is one of only a few places where it is possible to see habituated, wild western lowland gorillas. Western gorillas have very long developmental periods, with adult females not giving birth until they are 12 years of age and males reaching maturity when they are 18 years old. Social interactions among gorillas include resting together, grooming, and play by the infants and juveniles. Western gorillas spend as much as 30% of their time in the trees, making them much more arboreal than mountain gorillas. Gorillas do not have set territories, but groups have overlapping home ranges. Their daily routine consists of feeding for a few hours, resting, feeding, resting, during which they will move several kilometers distance through their 25 km2 home range. Gorillas are vegetarian, with their diet consisting of fruit, leaves, and herbaceous vegetation. Silverbacks protect their females and offspring from other gorilla groups, predators, and other threats. Western lowland gorillas live in social groups consisting of one silverback, several adult females, and their offspring. Adult males (silverbacks that have a swath of silver hair on their backs and large crests on their heads) weigh about 150 kilograms and are twice the size of adult females. One rainforest animal that people find most fascinating is the gorilla.
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