‘Extraordinary event’ for mountain gorillas as new twins born in DRC | Endangered species
A second pair of mountain gorilla twins have been born in Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in what conservationists are celebrating as an “extraordinary” event for the endangered primates.
Just two months after tiny twin mountain gorillas were discovered by rangers in the Virunga massif in eastern DRC, another rare twin birth has been discovered by park rangers. This time, a male and female baby were spotted in the Baraka family, a troop of 19 mountain gorillas that roam the region’s high-altitude rainforests.
Park rangers placed the young primates under extra supervision to help them get through the critical first months, when infants face significant challenges becoming adults. Twins are extremely rare among mountain gorillas, accounting for less than 1% of births, and place additional demands on the mother.
The gorilla subspecies, found in just two isolated pockets of the Virunga Range and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in southwestern Uganda, has high infant mortality rates, with around a quarter falling victim to disease, trauma or infanticide.
In January, Virunga National Park announced that a female mountain gorilla named Mafuko had given birth to twins. The male babies are now 11 weeks old and appear to be in great shape, with the other gorillas in the troop taking special care of the mother to help care for her, according to rangers. Park authorities believe that twin births are more likely to occur when females are in particularly good physical condition.
Jacques Katutu, head of gorilla monitoring in Virunga, said: “Two cases of twin births in three months is an extraordinary event and provides another vital indicator that dedicated conservation efforts, which have continued despite the current instability in eastern Congo, continue to support the growth of the population of endangered mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park. »
Specialized veterinary care has played a leading role in the revival of the subspecies. In Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC, organizations such as Gorilla Doctors have prevented dozens of deaths by helping animals affected by human behavior, for example by releasing gorillas accidentally caught in poachers’ traps. Study attributes half of mountain gorilla population increase to veterinarians.
There were only 250 mountain gorillas left in the 1970s, and many believed the animals were at risk of extinction. Decades of intense conservation work allowed the population to surpass 1,000 in 2018, and conservation authorities have since downgraded the subspecies’ status from “critically endangered” to “endangered.”
The Congolese part of the Virunga mountain range remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for forest rangers. Over the past 20 years, more than 220 rangers have been killed in the park, where rebel groups like M23 and other militias, as well as bandits, operate with impunity.
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