The author selected the specific epithet for the name given by Hanno to "wild men" he had noted on the east coast of Africa, presumed by Savage to be a species of orang.

The interval between births, therefore, is long, which partly explains the slow population growth rates that make the western gorilla so vulnerable to poaching.

[10] Western gorillas' diets are high in fiber, including leaves, stems, fruit, piths, flowers, bark, invertebrates, and soil.

Fruit comprises most of the western lowland gorillas' diets when it is abundant, directly influencing their foraging and ranging patterns.

In the dry season from January to March, when fleshy fruits are few and far between, more fibrous vegetation such as the leaves and bark of the low-quality herbs Palisota and Aframomum are consumed.

Western gorillas inhabiting Gabon have been observed consuming the fruit, stems, and roots of Tabernanthe iboga, which, due to the compound ibogaine in it, acts on the central nervous system, producing hallucinogenic effects.

[2][17] Poaching, commercial logging and civil wars in the countries that compose the western gorillas' habitat are also threats.

Yet within the next thirty years, habitat loss and degradation from agriculture, timber extraction, mining and climate change will become increasingly larger threats.

[18] Estimates on the number of Cross River gorillas remaining is 250–300 in the wild, concentrated in approximately 9-11 locations.

[5] Recent genetic research[20] and field surveys suggest that there is occasional migration of individual gorillas between locations.

In 2007, a conservation plan for the Cross River gorilla was published, outlining the most important actions necessary to preserve this subspecies.

[21] The government of Cameroon has created the Takamanda National Park on the border with Nigeria, as an attempt to protect these gorillas.

[23] The hope is that these gorillas will be able to move between the Takamanda reserve in Cameroon over the border to Nigeria's Cross River National Park.