Tshiaberimu

Category: Gorillas, Tshiaberimu, Virunga National Park | Date: Feb 18 2009 | By: tshiaberimu

Hello, this is Tuver.

I hate to have to bring you bad news from Mount Tshiaberimu again. After the excitement of the new baby gorilla, I am pained to announce that the baby died. Sadly this is not unusual for gorillas, who have an extremely high mortality rate of 30%.

Shortly after we heard of the death of this precious new baby, I was devastated to hear about the death of another Mt Tshiaberimu gorilla - the magnificent Silverback Nzanzu. Nzanzu was an elderly silverback, who lived with his son Mukokya. While an autopsy is being carried out on his body, with the help of MGVP, we believe he died from old age.

Nzanzu was part of the original Kipura family, which split in 2002 allowing Nzanzu to form the Lusenge family with adult female Mwengesyali and their son Mukokya. This new group lived happily until 2007 when Mwengesyali left to form the Mutsunga group, leaving Nzanzu and his son Mukokya alone. In recent months the rangers had have been reporting that Nzanzu was looking increasingly old.

While this is very sad news for Mt Tshiaberimu, at least we can feel reassured that these two gorillas, at different stages of their lives, died naturally in their home environment.

Here is a photo of Nzanzu, taken in 2006.