Washington, February 22: Even gorillas in zoo need to switch to a leafy diet for a healthy heart.
“A lot are dying of heart disease, we believe, like humans,” said Elena Hoellein Less, doctoral candidate in biology at Case Western Reserve University in the US.
In fact, heart disease is the number one killer of male Western lowland gorillas – the only species of gorillas in North American zoos.
After Brooks, a 21-year-old gorilla, died of heart failure at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in 2005, Less and other researchers took a hard look at how the apes’ lifestyle affects their health, according to a Case Western statement.
Gone are the bucketful of vitamin-rich, high-sugar and high-starch foods that zoos used for decades to ensure gorillas received enough nutrients.
Instead, apes receive a wheelbarrow of romaine lettuce, dandelion greens and endive they gently tear and bite, alfalfa hay they nimbly pick through, young tree branches they strip of succulent bark and leaves and green beans.
Instead of spending about a quarter of their day eating the old diet, the pair now spends 50 to 60 percent of each day feeding and foraging, about the same amount of time wild gorillas forage.
Although they take in twice as many calories on the new diet, after a year, the big boys of the primate house have dropped nearly 65 pounds each and weigh in the range of their wild relatives.
—–IANS