A pair of twin mountain gorillas has been born in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo - a rare occurrence for the endangered primates, conservationists at Virunga National Park say. The community trackers, who discovered 22-year-old Mafuko hugging her newborns on Saturday, said the mother and her two baby sons all appeared to be well and healthy.
Twin births are thought to account for about 1% of all mountain gorilla births, though exact data is not widely available.
Virunga, situated in a conflict-prone part of DR Congo, is Africa's oldest and largest national park and was set up 100 years ago to protect mountain gorillas of which there are fewer than 1,100 left in the wild. They are only found in the Virunga and in national parks over the border in Rwanda and Uganda, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles a Red List of threatened species.
The last birth of mountain gorilla twins born in Virunga National Park was in September 2020. Mafuko herself gave birth to twins in 2016, but they both died within a week. Authorities have stated that additional monitoring and protection measures have been put in place to ensure the twins' survival during this critical period.
Thanks to anti-poaching patrols and community programs - supported by the European Union and Unesco - mountain gorilla numbers in Virunga have slowly increased over the past decade, leading to their status being upgraded from critically endangered to endangered in 2018.
Twin births are thought to account for about 1% of all mountain gorilla births, though exact data is not widely available.
Virunga, situated in a conflict-prone part of DR Congo, is Africa's oldest and largest national park and was set up 100 years ago to protect mountain gorillas of which there are fewer than 1,100 left in the wild. They are only found in the Virunga and in national parks over the border in Rwanda and Uganda, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles a Red List of threatened species.
The last birth of mountain gorilla twins born in Virunga National Park was in September 2020. Mafuko herself gave birth to twins in 2016, but they both died within a week. Authorities have stated that additional monitoring and protection measures have been put in place to ensure the twins' survival during this critical period.
Thanks to anti-poaching patrols and community programs - supported by the European Union and Unesco - mountain gorilla numbers in Virunga have slowly increased over the past decade, leading to their status being upgraded from critically endangered to endangered in 2018.
