Zoo’s bird-feeder-like device encourages gorillas to forage for snacks
Recreating gorillas' naturally foraging environments could improve their mental wellbeing and diet. Adam Thompson/Zoo ATL Apart from being naturally cliquey, gorillas are born foragers. In the wild, the great apes are regularly on the move in search of fruits, vegetables, and bamboo shoots; a habit that can become difficult to recreate when living within a zoo setting. At Zoo Atlanta, for example, human workers generally provided gorillas with their meals at certain scheduled times and locations. But an affordable new device could provide a much more naturalistic feeding regime for the apes—once they get used to it. [Related: Gorillas can be cliquey, too. Here’s what that says about our own social lives.] Recently, a team of mechanical engineering students and alumni at Georgia Tech began developing and testing ForageFeeder, a $400 machine partly...