Perhaps one of the most interesting discussions to get into is one about the might or strength of a mountain gorilla. If you came to Africa and embarked on a Uganda Gorilla Tracking Safari; coming face to face with an angry gorilla might have you running for your life even without knowing how harmful these creatures are.
Gorillas are the largest and heaviest (on average) of apes that are available to our world today. The silver-backs (male gorillas) have an average weight of 193 kilograms and rise beyond six (6) feet when standing on two feet. The female mountain gorillas are smaller and they are often slightly above half the height of the silver-backs (moms are way smaller than their fully grown sons).
Gorilla Facts pertaining to weight, size, age of maturity, duration of pregnancy and life expectancy have at least been explored reasonably; but we still have work to do in finding out the actual strength of a mountain gorilla.
A Safari to one of Uganda’s gorilla National parks (Bwindi or Mgahinga) will present you with the opportunity to watch how easily the silver-backs are able to uproot firmly-grounded bamboo shoots and how they shake well-founded trees when they are demonstrating or if angered; something that an average man would find so difficult to do. Perhaps this alone tells us that our cousins, the mountain gorillas might be stronger than we are.
Investigating their might is something quite difficult especially due to their endangered state. Scientists do not want to cross their lines so much because of the fear of losing some of these creatures. We are left to only imagining for ourselves how strong these creatures might be.
Something for just the strong in heart to watch is a fight between two silver-backs . These passionate fighters will strike at each with insurmountable strength that even the audience t is left trembling in fear. This is something you can hope not to find when tracking gorillas while on your Uganda Safari and Tour because it might as well be the most horrific event of your life.
The common talk is that a silverback has an average strength that is comparable to eight (8) fully grown men. Other gorilla fanatics believe that a mountain gorilla would easily win a fight against ten (10) heavy weight boxers even if they were using drugs. This leaves us wondering who would win the fight if the king of the jungle (the lion) and mountain gorilla were to fold fists.
Scientists who have had the opportunity to work and research around the gorilla beringei beringei subspecies (mountain gorillas) have told us that even a four months old baby gorilla can never be contained by a single person even if he/she was reasonably fit. If this little one is that strong, then how strong would his dad be, especially if he was pissed off?
Hopefully in the years to come we will have a close to accurate estimation of how strong mountain gorillas actually are, but currently we should be careful not to appear as enemies to them lest we will be the specimen; or call it the lab rat, that will serve as an example for the rest of the world to see.
There are a few ways in which we could turn on the gorillas’ hot temper and we ought to avoid this as much as possible. On your Tour and Safari in Uganda, desist from flash-photography; try not to draw too close to the mountain gorilla family and leave your brightly colored clothes for other occasions.