Word: silverback
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...brought to my mind the recent weakness in the Canadian dollar, commonly called a loony, after the loon portrayed on the dollar coin. Coincidence? Or should the economists we send over to advise East European governments be supplanted by some zoologists? What if Belarus replaced the bunny with a silverback gorilla or a cougar? But does Belarus have any silverback-gorilla habitat? Suddenly, I threw down the paper. Since when did I have to start worrying about the stability of the Belarus bunny...
...made it clear she won't do interviews. But much is already known about her. She's a young widow (age 8) and has always been special. Raised mostly by humans in San Francisco, she was on loan to Chicago when she had a fling with Abe, the silverback patriarch who was more than six times her age. He died not long ago, after Koola was born, a father at last. Until Binti came along, no female had interested him. Fame and oodles of fan mail have not changed her. For example, Binti shared a 25-lb. gift basket...
Every foray into the forest brings us face-to-face with wildlife, most notably gorillas. In one day we tally four separate encounters, and by the end of the trip we have found 15 gorilla groups. A couple of silverbacks, or mature males, go through the motions of halfhearted charges, but most do not come forward even in response to distress calls and hand clapping by apprehensive females when we get between them and the males. We take to calling these circumspect males the "pacifist gorillas of Ndoki." The gorillas also seemed blithely unaware that they are supposed...
...GORILLA. Timmy, a 497-lb. silverback gorilla from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, left his mate Katie last week for a fling at the Bronx Zoo with four breeding beauties. Animal-rights activists fought the temporary move, but to no avail. They argued that Timmy is being used as a stud pony and not being treated as a "sensitive male." Katie, who is infertile, will be entertained by Oscar, a silverback from the Topeka Zoo, until Timmy returns...
Upon recognizing me, the group's dominant silverback swiftly braked to a stop three feet away, causing the four males behind him, momentarily and ungracefully, to pile up on top of him. At this instant I slowly sank to the ground to assume as submissive a pose as possible. The hair on each male's head-crest stood erect . . . canines were fully exposed, the irises of ordinarily soft brown eyes glinted yellow-more like those of cats than of gorillas-and an overpowering fear odor permeated the air. For a good half-hour all five males screamed...