Pressroom

Cleveland Zoo Society announces MCPc Gorilla Experience at the Zoo’s PCA Building

Posted: September 30, 2020

The Cleveland Zoological Society, the nonprofit advancement partner of Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, is proud to introduce the MCPc Gorilla Experience at the Zoo’s Primate, Cats & Aquatics Building. The fully interactive and ADA-accessible exhibit highlights the relationship between protection of gorillas and electronics recycling.

The MCPc Gorilla Experience inside the Zoo's Primate, Cat & Aquatics Building

At the MCPc Gorilla Experience, Zoo guests can interact with an 8-foot-tall touch screen “phone” to watch videos of gorillas in the wild, and read about the Zoo’s troop of gorillas, and learn about e-recycling and the importance of protecting habitats.

“We are always looking for new ways to engage our guests in our conservation work and in how to secure a future for wildlife like gorillas in Africa,” said Dr. Chris Kuhar, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Executive Director. “The MCPc Gorilla Experience helps start the conversation around these iconic species and reminds us that anyone can take action for conservation by recycling their electronics.”

Coltan is a mineral found in phones and other small electronics. It is mined from areas where endangered gorillas live. Recycling old mobile phones helps reduce the demand for coltan and protects gorilla habitat in Africa.

MCPc, a data protection company, fully funded and produced the Gorilla Experience exhibit. The company has an e-recycling facility on Pearl Road in Brooklyn, and Chair and Founder Mike Trebilcock has been working with the Zoo since 2018.

MCPc Chair and Founder Mike Trebilcock showing off the interactive touch screen "phone"

“The MCPc Gorilla Experience was created to raise the public’s awareness that when we choose convenience over responsibility in discarding our technology, it creates multiple layers of damage to both the animal kingdom and our own species. Wasteful and needless damage is done to gorillas in their native habitat as we search for minerals used in our electronic devices. Additional damage is done to our collective environment when people don’t properly recycle their devices,” says Mike Trebilcock, Founder of MCPc. “It’s not hard to do the right thing for both gorillas and humans, we just have to practice mindfulness. We’re grateful to Cleveland Metroparks Zoo for partnering on this exhibit, and we’re dedicated to further socializing this important message and taking it across the country to other cities and zoos.”

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has been committed to wildlife conservation for more than 20 years and has contributed more than $8.5 million to wildlife conservation efforts around the world in partnership with Cleveland Zoological Society. The Zoo partners with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund to protect critically endangered Grauer’s gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo and endangered mountain gorillas in Rwanda.

Cleveland Zoo Society, MCPc, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and Cleveland Metroparks staff