IT was a relatively mild, but damp, St David’s Day when 24 members of Crediton Probus Club gathered at Downes Crediton Golf Club for their monthly meeting on Tuesday, March 1.

Grace was said by Bob Browning and after Burford Cupper had given the loyal toast, Raymond King gave the month’s quotation.

Christopher Maycock then introduced our speaker, the zoologist Dr Liz Rogers, an Oxford graduate who had taken her PhD at Yale and was, for many years, a lecturer at Edinburgh University where she specialised in the study of primates. Liz now lives in Stockleigh Pomeroy.

She had spent considerable time working with the lowland gorilla population of Gabon.

Her illustrated talk was entitled “Meet the Gorillas” and was a detailed, beautifully illustrated look at the lives of both the lowland and mountain sub-species.

She mentioned Titus, a silverback from the gorilla population of the Virunga Mountains, who had been studied over his entire 25 year life by researchers and had become a celebrity in his own right.

The world first became fully aware of the mountain gorilla’s existence (it is concentrated in eastern Africa - in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ruanda and Uganda) through the work of the late American zoologist, Dian Fossey (1932 – 1965).

A rather controversial character, she was eventually murdered. Fossey’s long-term study of a single family group of the animals showed them to be a shy, gentle and largely non-aggressive species with a very complex social life.

Dominant males over 10 years old, the silverbacks will react to threats by taking protective action.

The population of lowland gorillas studied by Liz live in similar family groups, largely in the West African countries of Gabon and Congo.

The animals are much less obvious in a jungle context, where they are more difficult to observe, than they are in mountain areas. Study of their nests, the sites of which are moved daily, and the associated toilet areas, were particularly rewarding.

The analysis, by sifting, of dung tells the researcher exactly what the animal has recently eaten. It contains many fruit and seed types. Gorillas, unlike chimps, are exclusively vegetarian.

After a very informative and well-illustrated talk, John Marshall thanked Liz and Burford Cupper concluded the meeting with the usual toast of “To the next time!”.

KB