Their cousin the Grauer’s gorilla is in an even more precarious position, as their population has dropped an estimated 80% in the past two decades. There are just over 1,000 mountain gorillas left in the world, and while their numbers are slowly increasing, they are still dependent on our daily intensive conservation activities. First and foremost, we are dedicated to the protection of individual gorillas and their families. Pillar One: Protecting individual gorillas and their families. To understand what we plan to do with this generosity, it helps to understand the four pillars underpinning our people-centered approach to conservation. As we often say: when you save gorillas, you save the planet. The WallStreetBets donations will be used not only to protect gorillas, but to protect their forest home, which is the second largest tropical rainforest on the planet and one of our best natural defenses against climate change. This pandemic, which scientists agree likely began when a zoonotic disease “jumped” from wild animals to humans, made it clear that, while it is expensive to protect and maintain pristine forests, there is a greater cost to letting these forests be damaged. The onset of the pandemic in 2020 made our work in the forests of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo more difficult, more costly - and more critical to the survival of gorillas and the humans who live nearby. We were surprised and honored by this sudden flood of generosity. Last week the Reddit investor group WallStreetBets started a viral, grassroots campaign to adopt gorillas in support of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, and we received thousands of donations, mostly through our gorilla adoption program. It’s been a wild ride for those of us who love gorillas.

Apes strong together wallstreetbets