ANOTHER SET OF GORILLA TWINS BORN
Births of gorilla babies in Rwanda are always a cause for celebrations, by conservationists and the tourism fraternity alike. Yet, when a gorilla gives birth to twins this really sets all the bells ringing and excites the media too. Overnight did confirmation arrive of a pending and until just now unconfirmed rumour that a female of the ‘Susa’ gorilla group had given birth to twins, ahead of the imminent annual gorilla naming festival ‘Kwita Izina’ on 18th of June.
The newborn twins, according to sources in Kigali, are a female and a male, belong to Rumuvu who already gave birth twice before in 2005 and 2009.
The same habituated group had another set of twins born back in February, as reported here of course at the time, who will be named with 20 others during ‘Kwita Izina’ in two weeks time, but the latest addition to the ‘Susa’ family will only come up for naming in 2012 due to the short time frame now available to process relevant documents.
‘Kwita Izina’ is the pride and joy of Rwanda’s tourism and conservation sectors as all eyes from the global conservation fraternity are set on ‘The Land of a Thousand Hills’ to celebrate the overwhelming successes recorded over the last decade. During this time the gorilla population in Rwanda increased by nearly 30 percent as a result of increased protection measures by what used to be ORTPN and is now ‘Tourism and Conservation’ under the auspices of the Rwanda Development Board.
Ms. Rica Rwigamba, who heads ‘Tourism and Conservation’ at RDB expressed her delight when announcing the news yesterday from her offices in Kigali.
