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Around half of the babies will fall victims to vicious inter-family fights, experts say.<\/p>\n
Celebrities, politicians and conservationists took turns to announce names for 40 infant gorillas in a glamorous ceremony in Rwanda, where the endangered creatures face a deadly threat from overcrowding.<\/p>\n
Around half of the babies will not make it to adulthood due to vicious inter-family fights that are threatening decades of conservation work, experts say.<\/p>\n
Efforts over the past half-century have helped the gorilla population recover from critical levels in the Virunga Massif that spans Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
But increased numbers also make the adult male gorillas, known as silverbacks, clash more frequently, with devastating results.<\/p>\n
“Silverbacks fight as they try to protect their territories,” said Eugene Mutangana, conservation management expert at the Rwanda Development Board.<\/p>\n
“The infants end up dying because the silverback that wins eliminates the young ones,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n
He said around half of all young gorillas born over the past decade have been killed in this way.<\/p>\n
None of that was mentioned as celebrities such as Hollywood actor Michelle Yeoh and “Transformers” director Michael Bay enjoyed the naming ceremony in the foothills of Volcanoes National Park.<\/p>\n
“I hear he is such a good-looking baby gorilla, and being a movie director I promise I am going to make him a famous gorilla movie star,” said Bay, who named his gorilla Umurage, meaning “heritage.”<\/p>\n
Short but vicious fights<\/p>\n
Rwanda has launched an ambitious program to expand the gorillas’ habitat by 23% that will see around 3,400 human households relocated from the edge of Volcanoes National Park.<\/p>\n
But the program will take more than 10 years to complete, Mutangana acknowledged.<\/p>\n
And in the meantime, scarcity of land causes the deadly incidents to continue.<\/p>\n
A ranger in the park, who asked not to be named, said he had taken tourists to see gorillas only to come across dead infant ones.<\/p>\n
“When families meet, which is not frequent… the males often fight,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n
“We leave them to fight. They are normally short but vicious fights. The silverback which wins ends up hitting the infant on hard surfaces until it dies.”<\/p>\n
He said grieving mothers will often isolate themselves from the new dominant male.<\/p>\n
“It is a sad sight,” the ranger said.<\/p>\n
Extreme temperatures were also a cause of death for infant gorillas, he added.<\/p>\n
Julius Nziza, lead medic at Rwanda’s Gorilla Doctors Office, said many infants were also left injured by the fights.<\/p>\n
“We don’t intervene because it is a natural phenomenon. We only intervene when it is human-induced or life-threatening infections like a serious respiratory disease,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The problem can be dealt with through expanding the habitat.”<\/p>\n
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The number of gorillas in Rwanda fell to just 242 in 1981, according to a study by the late conservationist Dian Fossey.<\/p>\n