Imagine being in a notorious biker gang, led by one ultimate badass biker, living the independent biker lifestyle. Now imagine being a gorilla that leads a pack of 46 other gorillas, providing protection and guidance...now that's badass. A 31 year-old silverback gorilla named Cantsbee has led his group for 15 years and is now nearing the end of his reign as leader. Cantsbee is the leader of the largest pack of gorillas in the world, his pack alone represents 7% of the remaining mountain gorillas in the world! Cantsbee is now starting to share his power with another younger silverback named Gicurasi, who is 15 years-old and is in his prime.
Gorillas spend their lives hoping one day to be able to be a leader of a group. With leadership comes access to females, but they are also in charge of protecting the group. The aging Cantsbee has been allowing Gicurasi to split up and lead smaller packs on day-trips along with sexual encounters with female gorillas. In the end of the day, Gicurasi would always return to the main group.
It's amazing to hear about how these gorillas are capable of organizing these hierarchical-like groups to drive the well-being and survival of their species. It also seems like the tranfer of power is fairly accepted and understood, as compared to humans where we try to retain power for as long as we can. This article really made we wonder about the level of communication between these gorillas. Keeping a pack together for 15 years really tells shows how much these gorillas rely on the leader and on each other.
link to the article
Kevin Tse
Now see this article is interesting not only on the basis that its showing the political structure of gorillas, but the fact that Cantsbee is sharing his power shows an apprenticeship trait. To me I interpret this article as gorillas know that in order to survive the best leader needs to lead the group on means of sexual reproduction and being able to defend the group. Its just the fact that they aren't challenging the eachother for the dominant role, but instead training and showing him how to lead by allowing him to lead a little himself. This article was very well chosen.
ReplyDelete-Peter A. Lucas
Good point about the apprenticeship Peter. Before reading this article, I would suspect that it would be an all out competition for the leadership role. It's interesting to learn that this an accepted process in the tribe and it also seems linked to the culture of gorillas.
ReplyDeleteKevin Tse