Martha Robbins has been working with mountain gorillas in Uganda so long that having a large, 300-pound male charge towards her is a relatively normal occurrence. The primatologist with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany has made a career of getting the great apes habituated to her presence so she can study them up close. Sometimes habituation can take a while, and that means a large primate occasionally comes barreling through the forest towards her.
“That’s when you have to say, ‘I know this is crazy, but I’m holding my ground,’” Robbins says.
It’s nearly always a bluff charge; Robbins says she’s never experienced any violence from the animals. If you show them respect, she says, then they will let you into their lives. “They have a nickname, Gentle Giants.”
