Gorilla Family
19 MEMBERS: LAST UPDATED 22/02/2022
Baraka group is a new group in Virunga National Park. Baraka group is found in Gikereri area and is led by the dominant Silverback Baraka. Baraka group is in the final stages of its habituation and has already been opened for tourism. So far, Baraka group is composed of about 19 individuals. Since it is a new group, identification of the individuals to know their exact number and class has been on-going since February 2020.
00
Silverbacks
9
Adult females
3
Blackbacks
00
Sub-adult females
3
Juveniles
4
Infants
The eastern gorilla is a large hominid with a large head, broad chest, and long arms. It has a flat nose with large nostrils. The face, hands, feet and breast are bald. The fur is mainly black, but adult males have a silvery “saddle” on their back. When the gorilla gets older, the hair on the saddle of the back becomes white, much like the gray hair of elderly people. This is why the older males are called silverbacks. Grauer’s gorilla has a shorter, thicker, deep black fur, while the mountain gorilla has a more bluish color. The mountain gorilla is slightly smaller and lighter than Grauer’s gorilla, but still larger and heavier than the western lowland gorilla and the Cross River gorilla. Males are much larger than females. A full-grown male eastern gorilla typically weighs 140–205.5 kg (309–453 lb) and stands 1.7 m (5.6 ft) upright.
The goal of the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP) is to ensure the conservation of mountain gorillas and their regional afromontane forest habitat in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Located in the Albertine Rift Valley in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Virunga National Park is Africa’s most biodiverse protected area that protects 1/3 of the wild mountain gorillas, over one thousand species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.
