Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
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Quick answers
Why western gorilla as the type?
The taxonomy wiki is Western gorilla. Mountain gorillas are G. beringei, fewer, more filmed, and less CR. The atlas follows the listed type, not the movie.
Did Fossey study this type?
Karisoke watched mountain gorillas in Rwanda. The methods and the murder belong to that species; western gorillas have Mbeli Bai and different threats (Ebola, bushmeat).
What about Koko and language?
Francine Patterson project treated signs as words. Linguists remain split. The atlas files Koko as culture and a research programme, not as proof that wild western gorillas recite English.
Why the lowest resilience in the 24?
CR western gorillas plus Ebola, logging and hunt. Mountain gorilla rebound is real and is a different species card.
What is Mbeli Bai?
A forest clearing in Nouabale-Ndoki where western gorillas come for minerals -- a platform study that rarely makes a biopic.
Did Gorillas in the Mist help the type?
The 1988 film helped mountain gorilla tourism and the Fossey myth. Western lowland numbers kept falling on a different map.
IUCN: Critically Endangered
The gorilla future is a triad of climate, take and attention -- not a product roadmap.
Risk scores here track conservation pressure relative to other types. High resilience types sit in a calmer band; CR/EN types do not.
Conservation risk
Gorilla sits in a critical pressure band in this atlas (resilience 11/100). Western gorilla Critically Endangered; mountain gorilla (a different species, G. beringei) is Endangered after a guarded rebound. Resilience here follows the atlas type: CR.
Teaching snapshot as of September 2026 — not a live IUCN feed.
Safeguards
Listing and enforcement
CITES, ESA, RFMOs and national parks only work when patrols and papers move.
Site protection
A breeding lake, ice type or cavity tree cannot be replaced by a logo.
Prey and forage base
Seals, krill, ungulates, bamboo and sardines are the quiet half of the gorilla budget.
Disease and toxin watch
Ebola, KHV, TTX, lead and rodenticides are type-specific ceilings.
English-language science capacity
The field sites in the techDeep lens still train the next census -- they are a safeguard only if funded.
What monitoring automates first
Census and acoustics
Camera traps, radar and moorings already take hours that used to be only notebooks.
Trade-document checks
eBCD and permit databases can flag a loin or a skin faster than a paper file.
Outbreak mapping
Flu and Ebola desks now run on shared dashboards -- still needing a human closer.
Visitor flow
Ticketing and hide cameras can be scheduled; habituation ethics cannot be fully automated.
Structural shifts
Climate as habitat law
Ice, bleach and river heat are now listing factors, not background weather.
From fortress to corridor
National parks plus gene flow -- panda belts, tiger landscapes, wolf packs on roads.
Fame as a take risk
Nemo, Jaws, Koko and Cecil still move capture, fear and donations in the same year.
English science is not the range
The localLens is a reading aid. Range-state languages still hold the living animal.
Outlook
Near term
Expect more listings, more cameras and more conflict paperwork -- not a sudden best-species ending.
Medium term
Sites that keep forage and enforcement will hold; single-lake and single-forest types stay brittle.
Long view
The gorilla body plan will remain recognisable. The map of secure versus threatened populations will not.
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