Virunga Mountain Gorilla Population Increased

The recent census shows that there is increase in the population of the highly endangered Mountain Gorillas in Virunga Mountain in democratic republic of Congo. Virunga is one of the gorilla regions in Africa that contributes to gorilla safaris. Besides Bwindi Impenetrable National park that has almost a half of the Mountain gorillas in Africa making it a leading region for gorilla tours, Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park and Mgahinga of Uganda shares the rest with Virunga National Park and also important as well for gorilla safaris in Africa.  Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park is also popular for Rwanda safaris and Rwanda tours se well. Though the there is an Increase in Mountain gorillas of Virunga National Park, The area is not popular compared to the other two areas of Impenetrable National Park and Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park.

There are only two small populations of mountain gorilla in the world; these rear endangered human relatives were made famous by Dian Fossey and the Holly Wood movie ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ are today the focus of a unique gorilla eco tourism programme which generates valuable income for the park Authorities, Local communities and the national tourism industry. Small group of tourists pay large fees to spend one hour with one of the gorilla families, which have been habituated to human presence.

The census is a large and expensive undertaking, a total of 100 team members participated along with numerous support staff, porters, drivers and logistics coordinators, drawn from the staff of the protected area authorities and their partners to identify the entire gorilla habitat range.  Gorillas do not carry passports nor recognize international boundaries, and therefore move freely within the continues forest block across the three countries, this has to be considered therefore as one shared population and census is normally done in all national parks simultaneously in one complete sweep.