Congo’s gorillas in ‘baby boom’

THE Democratic Republic of Congo’s mountain gorilla population grew by about 13% in what one primate expert called a “baby boom” even as a rebel conflict forced rangers to flee the park.

Mountain gorillas inhabiting Virunga National Park that are considered tame increased to 81 this month from 72 in 2007, the park said in a report.

The rise occurred as rangers fled the world’s second-oldest national park after Yellowstone in the US amid fighting between the Congolese army and rebels loyal to Laurent Nkunda, who was captured last week in neighbouring Rwanda. “When there’s very intense fighting as there has been in the past 15 months, there is the possibility of gorillas being killed,” park director Emmanuel de Merode said yesterday. Instead, “there’s been an unusually high number of births... It is a postwar baby boom”.