Pen Pals for Primates : Second-Graders Enlisted in Fight to Protect Gorillas

Evelyn Gallardo went a little ape in a Manhattan Beach classroom on Thursday, grunting like a gorilla, charging at one little boy with her arms in the air and imitating primate expressions.

But she wasn’t just monkeying around; her message was serious. Gallardo, a primate enthusiast who has traveled to remote jungles to study and photograph the animals, wants the second graders at Meadows Avenue Elementary School to help save the estimated 280 African mountain gorillas from extinction.

“There are more students in your school right here than there are mountain gorillas in the whole world,” Gallardo said. Teacher Sue Allard estimated the school’s enrollment at 375.

Pen-Pal Program

Gallardo and her boyfriend, David Root, both Manhattan Beach residents, are starting a pen-pal program between students of all ages from the Los Angeles area and Uganda.

“Students are extremely powerful in exerting peer pressure and influencing their peers,” Gallardo said in an interview. “Kids go home and talk to their parents. It doesn’t stop in the classroom. In this case, it stretches all the way to Africa.”

Gallardo and Root got a list of 92 Ugandan students who want to participate in the pen-pal program from researchers working on a conservation project there.

Gallardo estimated that 115 mountain gorillas live in Uganda. The rest live in adjacent Rwanda and Zaire, she said.

Unlike those two countries, Uganda has no research center, poaching is more frequent there and more help is needed to save its mountain gorillas, she said. In addition, English is the official language of Uganda.

Before the children wrote their letters, she showed thems slides that she and Root took while in Rwanda several years ago, studying at the research center of the late Dian Fossey. The pictures drew “oohs,” “aahs” and giggles from the students. Gallardo continually told the students to look into gorillas’ eyes and read their emotions: a worried mother, a curious baby, a protective male.

Grisly Souvenirs

“It’s hard to tell you this,” she told the class, “but they used to kill mountain gorillas to cut off their heads and make trophies out of them and use their hands for ashtrays to sell to tourists. They don’t do that as much, because of the work of Dian Fossey.”

(Fossey, a pioneer in the effort to save the gorillas, was found murdered in Rwanda. Her killer has never been captured.)

Some poachers still hunt the mountain gorillas for zoos, she said, adding: “Mountain gorillas don’t survive in zoos, they just don’t. They’re used to living at high altitudes and in groups”--usually of two to 25 animals.

Poachers go after the babies--the weakest and most easily transported in a group--and always must kill the mothers to get them, Gallardo said.

The male leader of the group--known as a silverback because of its characteristic silver stripe of fur--often tries to defend the baby and is killed too. Others will then rush to the group’s defense and, she said, “for every baby, maybe 10 gorillas get killed in the wild.”

‘Rather Run Than Fight’

Gallardo emphasized the gentleness of the mountain gorillas. “They aren’t the furious animals you’re used to seeing in movies like ‘King Kong.’ . . . They would rather run away than fight,” she said.

She told the students about Jozi, a particularly friendly mountain gorilla that was always the first to greet Gallardo, Root and other jungle researchers. One time, Jozi sat down next to Root and rested her head on his shoulder for 20 minutes while he filmed other gorillas.

One time a mountain gorilla tried to touched Gallardo’s face--presumably intrigued by her lack of facial hair--but slowly withdrew his hand when she whimpered to let him know that she was uncomfortable.

One of Fossey’s rules for visitors to her research center, Gallardo said, was that no one was to speak to the gorillas except in their own guttural language.

She demonstrated the vocalization that says, “I’m approaching you and I’m a friend. I’m not going to hurt you.” The second-graders obediently mimicked her grunting pattern--and wouldn’t stop for several minutes.

‘Let Them Do Anything’

“Did you get to pet them?” one girl asked.

“We never petted the mountain gorillas, but we let them do anything they wanted to us,” Gallardo responded.

While she discussed the animals’ grooming habits and showed a slide of one gorilla fingering another’s fur, one girl was busy braiding her friend’s long, brown hair, apparently unaware of the similar behavior.

Gallardo emphasized that mountain gorillas are very much like humans physically and are susceptible to the same diseases. That prompted one boy to ask: “Do they have AIDS?”

“No,” Gallardo answered, “They have not found AIDS in mountain gorillas.”

Referring to Fossey, one boy asked: “How did that lady die?”

She was killed, Gallardo explained simply, and quickly turned to field another question.

“But how did she die,” another boy insisted.

No one knows who did it, she answered. Then, realizing that answer was not going to satisfy the class either, she said: “With a machete.”

“What’s a machete?” a couple of students asked.

A long knife, Gallardo said. “OK, let’s have a question on something else.”

“There’s such a difference between adult audiences and student audiences,” she said in an interview. “Adults are reluctant to ask questions. They have questions, they’re just slow to raise their hands. The students have tons of questions. As soon as you ask for questions, their hands shoot in the air.”

Gallardo and Root have lectured to community groups to raise money for their trips, which Root said cost the couple at least $10,000. The presentations to the schools are free.

Gallardo said she has talked to about 200 other students in schools in Pasadena and Los Angeles. Thursday’s presentation was her first at a South Bay school.

She set up the session after one of the students, 7-year-old Jeremy Broun, attended a community lecture in Manhattan Beach and volunteered to pass out flyers and arrange display tables.

On Thursday, Jeremy wore a T-shirt with a mountain gorilla and its baby on it that Gallardo and Root sell on behalf of the International Primate Protection League.

‘I Think It’s Scary’

Jeremy said he wants to help save the mountain gorillas, but wouldn’t go into the jungle to observe them. “I think it’s scary,” he said.

Seven-year-old Andrea McColl said she thinks the mountain gorillas are “very interesting and I’d like to meet one in person.” Asked if she would be scared, she said, “Not really, as long as my mom and dad are with me.”

Andrea said she enjoyed Gallardo’s presentation “because I’m glad that people are concerned about the different types of animals. I’m an animal liker.”

She said she believes the letters she and her classmates wrote to Ugandan students will help the gorillas. “I think it will help the kids to think about mountain gorillas and tell the poachers to please stop killing the mountain gorillas.”

Pupil Chris Dye agreed that the students’ letters may help save the mountain gorillas.

“I’m going to write pen-pal letters to kids in Africa,” he said. “If they have poachers for dads, I think that might help stop (the) killing (of) mountain gorillas.”

His letter was short and made no mention of the gorillas. He wanted to get to know his pen pal before he started pressuring him, he explained.