Birth of Twins Offers Hope to Threatened Mountain Gorilla Population

On May 19th, second-time mother Nyabitondore gave birth to twins. This is great news for the threatened mountain gorilla population.

Surprisingly Nyabitondore was originally thought to be male until she delivered baby Ishema in 2000. Now nearly twelve and half years old, Nyabitondore has delivered twins. And although gorilla twins are a real rarity and there's no documented past incidence of both twins surviving; for the moment, this mother and both infants appear to be thriving, with good weather on their side. Since the infants are small, Nyabitondore is able to carry the infants in one arm while moving around and eating. Naturally, as the infants grow this will become increasingly challenging for Nyabitondore.

Nyabitondore is part of the Susa group, the largest group of gorillas in the world. The Susa group resides in Volcanoes National Park (Parc National des Volcans), a key region in the Virunga Heartland. The Susa group has only had one other set of twins born to their group (born to Umuhanga in 1991). Unfortunately, one twin died soon after its birth and the other died soon after its mother was killed in a poaching incident in 2002.

Mountain gorillas characteristically bear young for the first time at around ten years of age. Then, typically, mountain gorillas only reproduce once every three to four years. The gorilla's slow reproduction, combined with poaching, loss of habitat from population pressures, civil unrest and disease, has made it challenging for the mountain gorilla population to endure.

But, conservation efforts initiated by the International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP), a coalition of the African Wildlife Foundation, Fauna and Flora International and World Wide Fund for Nature, have helped to ensure that the endangered mountain gorilla population will endure. Through a variety of methods, including transboundary collaboration, ranger-based monitoring, community development, anti-poaching activities and habitat conservation, IGCP and its conservation partners are helping the mountain gorillas to make a comeback. In fact, a recent census shows a 17 percent increase in population since 1989. And now with the birth of these twins, the population has increased ever so slightly.