Celebrities, politicians and conservationists took turns to announce names for 40 infant gorillas in a glamorous ceremony in Rwanda, where the endangered creatures face a deadly threat from overcrowding.<\/p>\n
Around half of the babies will not make it to adulthood due to vicious inter-family fights that are threatening decades of conservation work, experts say.<\/p>\n
Efforts over the past half-century have helped the gorilla population recover from critical levels in the Virunga Massif that spans Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
But increased numbers also make the adult male gorillas, known as silverbacks, clash more frequently, with devastating results.<\/p>\n
“Silverbacks fight as they try to protect their territories,” said Eugene Mutangana, conservation management expert at the Rwanda Development Board.<\/p>\n
“The infants end up dying because the silverback that wins eliminates the young ones,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n
He said around half of all young gorillas born over the past decade have been killed in this way.<\/p>\n
None of that was mentioned as celebrities such as Hollywood actor Michelle Yeoh and “Transformers” director Michael Bay enjoyed the naming ceremony in the foothills of Volcanoes National Park.<\/p>\n
“I hear he is such a good-looking baby gorilla, and being a movie director I promise I am going to make him a famous gorilla movie star,” said Bay, who named his gorilla Umurage, meaning “heritage”.<\/p>\n
– Short but vicious fights –<\/p>\n
Rwanda has launched an ambitious programme to expand the gorillas’ habitat by 23 percent that will see around 3,400 human households relocated from the edge of Volcanoes National Park.<\/p>\n
But the programme will take more than 10 years to complete, Mutangana acknowledged.<\/p>\n
And in the meantime, scarcity of land causes the deadly incidents to continue.<\/p>\n
A ranger in the park, who asked not to be named, said he had taken tourists to see gorillas only to come across dead infant ones.<\/p>\n
“When families meet, which is not frequent… the males often fight,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n
“We leave them to fight. They are normally short but vicious fights. The silverback which wins ends up hitting the infant on hard surfaces until it dies.”<\/p>\n
He said grieving mothers will often isolate themselves from the new dominant male.<\/p>\n
“It is a sad sight,” the ranger said.<\/p>\n
Extreme temperatures were also a cause of death for infant gorillas, he added.<\/p>\n
Julius Nziza, lead medic at Rwanda’s Gorilla Doctors Office, said many infants were also left injured by the fights.<\/p>\n
“We don’t intervene because it is a natural phenomenon. We only intervene when it is human-induced or life-threatening infections like a serious respiratory disease,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The problem can be dealt with through expanding the habitat.”<\/p>\n
– Recovery, revenue –<\/p>\n
The number of gorillas in Rwanda fell to just 242 in 1981, according to a study by the late conservationist Dian Fossey.<\/p>\n
Conservation efforts, including anti-poaching patrols, community engagement, veterinary care, habitat protection and monitoring led to a gradual recovery, though they are still classed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.<\/p>\n
The population has lately climbed to over 1,000 and is rising by four percent annually, though it could be double that without the infant deaths, Nziza said.<\/p>\n
Conservation work is also undermined by the presence of numerous armed groups in the remote hills of Virunga, and illegal mining and logging operations.<\/p>\n
Humans have encroached on more than half of the protected region, and around 130 rangers have been killed over the years trying to protect it.<\/p>\n
The armed clashes have disrupted gorilla feeding and breeding patterns.<\/p>\n
The naming ceremony was a high-profile event highlighting the relative success of the country’s conservation efforts.<\/p>\n
The gorillas have also become a valuable source of tourism revenue, bringing in around $200 million last year, according to the Rwanda Development Board — with visitor numbers limited by high permit prices of around $1,500.<\/p>\n
str-er-rbu\/rlp\/jj<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celebrities, politicians and conservationists took turns to announce names for 40 infant gorillas in a glamorous ceremony in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":209893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4299,115187,115186,5201,115185,159,67,132,68,115188,115184,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-209892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-conservation-efforts","9":"tag-gorilla-population","10":"tag-naming-ceremony","11":"tag-rwanda","12":"tag-rwanda-development-board","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-vicious-fights","18":"tag-volcanoes-national-park","19":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115168055342670909","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}