PRESS ROOM

ROYAL OAK, Mich., 

The Detroit Zoological Society (DZS), a partner in a collaborative worldwide effort to save the highly endangered Grauer’s gorilla, will host a special presentation by the executive director of the Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education (GRACE) Center in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Dr. Sonya M. Kahlenberg will speak at 6 p.m. on Sunday, August 14, in the Ford Education Center at the Detroit Zoo.  The presentation – titled “Saving Gorillas from Extinction” – is open to the public at a cost of $25, with all proceeds benefiting GRACE.

GRACE is the only facility in the world that provides rescue and rehabilitative care for orphaned Grauer’s gorillas – considered one of the world’s most endangered primates. The organization was founded in 2009 by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International and is now led by a board of directors chaired by DZS Executive Director and CEO Ron Kagan.

“We are proud of our relationship with GRACE,” Kagan said. “It is an amazing conservation, welfare and humane education initiative, and a wonderful collaboration of important organizations working together with a very special Congolese community to ensure that this population of extremely endangered gorillas survives.”

Tickets for the GRACE lecture can be purchased at www.detroitzoo.org or at the door.  Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

GRACE is located on 370 acres in a remote, forested area of central Africa.  It is currently home to 14 orphaned Grauer’s gorillas between the ages of 3 and 15 years old.  Grauer’s gorillas, also known as eastern lowland gorillas, are closely related to humans.  They are also highly endangered due to widespread habitat destruction, poaching and threats associated with the rapidly growing human population within their habitat caused by civil war and unrest in the region.

In the last 20 years, nearly 80 percent of the Grauer’s gorilla population has been wiped out, and only 3,800 of these animals remain in the wild today.  As part of the effort to conserve the species, the orphaned gorillas being cared for at GRACE are also learning skills for eventual reintroduction into the wild.  For more information, visit www.gracegorillas.org.