Kigali, Rwanda
Monday, September 8, 2025

By Moses GAHIGI

In front of an audience of international stars, forty mountain gorilla babies are being named at the foot of Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, where their existence is threatened by overcrowding in their habitat, with dominant males often killing the smallest ones.
Hollywood actress Michelle Yeoh, former soccer stars such as France’s Bacary Sagna and Argentina’s Javier Pastore, and Senegalese-Italian influencer superstar Khaby Lame gathered in early September to name “their” baby gorilla to the sound of fanfare, with green hills in the background.
“I’m going to make him a movie star gorilla,” smiled American director Michael Bay of “Transformers,” who said he named ‘his’ gorilla “Umurage,” which means “heritage” in Kinyarwanda, the national language.
But behind this celebration lies a sadder reality: half of these baby gorillas may not reach adulthood, according to experts, due to violent inter-family conflicts.
Mountain gorillas, or silverbacks, have come a long way in the Virunga massif, a vast hilly jungle divided between Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, Uganda’s Mgahinga National Park, and the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

While only 242 were recorded in 1981, according to a study by legendary primate conservationist Dian Fossey, intensive conservation efforts—combating poaching, mobilizing local communities, providing veterinary care, etc.—have increased their numbers to over a thousand.
One of the great satisfactions is that this primate, with its superb dark, thick, shiny fur, has been classified as “endangered” since 2018, rather than “critically endangered” as are the other great apes.
But its growing population, in a habitat that has been halved by humans, means that different groups are encountering each other more frequently in the space they have left.
However, “silverback males fight to protect their territory,” Eugène Mutangana, a conservation management expert at the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), told AFP.
In the defeated group, the young are then “eliminated” by the victor, he continues, adding that about half of the young gorillas born in the last decade have been killed in this way.
– “Natural phenomenon” –
“These are normally short but fierce fights,” says a ranger from the Virunga Massif, who requested anonymity because the issue is sensitive in Rwanda, where wildlife tourism is an important source of foreign exchange.

Gorillas generated around $200 million for Kigali last year, according to the RDB, despite visitor numbers being limited by the high cost of wildlife permits, which cost around $1,500 per visitor.
“The silverback that wins ends up beating the young ones against hard surfaces until they die,” continues the ranger, who says he has sometimes taken clients to see the gorillas only to find dead babies.
The grieving mothers then often isolate themselves from the new dominant male, he says.
“We don’t intervene because it’s a natural phenomenon,” observes Julius Nziza, chief veterinarian for the NGO Gorilla Doctors in Rwanda.
“We only intervene when it comes to serious man-made or life-threatening diseases, such as severe respiratory illness,” he adds.
However, the problem can “be solved by expanding the habitat,” says the doctor.
Rwanda has therefore decided to expand the gorillas’ habitat by 23% by relocating some 3,400 families outside the Virunga massif, with compensation, says Eugène Mutangana of the RDB.
But the operation, which he says should increase the survival rate of babies by half, began several years ago and could take more than a decade to complete.

Conservation efforts are further undermined by the presence of numerous armed groups in the remote hills of Virunga, particularly in the DRC, as well as by illegal mining and deforestation operations.
Armed clashes have disrupted the feeding and reproductive patterns of primates, according to experts, but also the humans trying to protect them. Around 130 rangers have been killed over the years trying to save the mountain gorillas.

Humaniterre with AFP