Signs of hope for rescued gorillas rewilded in DRC, but security concerns linger

Isangi, Lulingu, Mapendo and Ndjingala: these are the names of four Grauer’s gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri) that conservationists reintroduced to the wild in October 2024. After years in a sanctuary, the critically endangered gorillas were released via a rewilding facility in Virunga National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

All four of the gorillas were brought to the Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education Center (GRACE) in the DRC as infants between 2010 and 2016, after their families were killed by poachers. At 16 hectares (40 acres), the sanctuary gave them the space to forage, socialize and play in a setting close to their natural habitat, under the watchful eyes of adoptive gorilla mothers.

GRACE, which specializes in the rescue and rehabilitation of Grauer’s gorillas, a subspecies of the eastern gorilla (Gorilla beringei), said this was the largest reintroduction of eastern gorillas ever carried out in Africa.

“I think everybody was just amazed at the natural gorilla behavior the four females showed,” Katie Fawcett, executive and science director at GRACE, tells Mongabay. “Slowly, they moved further and further away from the release site and started exploring, taking on a new diet.”

The release back into the wild is the result of more than five years of rewilding work, led by GRACE, Virunga National Park, and local communities, with support from the NGOs Gorilla Doctors and Re:wild.

Grauer’s gorilla, also known as the eastern lowland gorilla, is endemic to the tropical forests of the eastern DRC. It’s the largest primate on Earth, bigger than any of the other gorillas. But its habitat is shrinking under the pressures of armed conflict, deforestation and mining. Its conservation status on the IUCN Red List worsened to critically endangered in 2016, after decades of being classified as endangered. Conservationists estimate that 77% of the population has disappeared since 1994 — falling from an estimated 16,900 to just 3,800 individuals by 2015.

A distinctive feature of the reintroduction is that all four gorillas are female, a decision closely tied to the social structure of Grauer’s gorillas. As several scientists told Mongabay, the species follows a harem system: each group is led by a dominant silverback male, accompanied by a group of females and their offspring.

“We chose only females because we were trying to mimic natural behavior,” Fawcett says. “In the wild, when females become adults, they can choose to stay in their natal group or move to a new one — and they often change groups throughout their life. By adding adult females, we were mimicking these natural transfers. Males, when they mature into silverbacks, may leave their group but don’t easily integrate into new ones.”

Biologist Emmanuelle Grundmann, a specialist in gorilla translocations who didn’t work on this specific operation, agrees that the choice of females was essential.

“For the reintroduction to have a chance of success, it had to be females. A male would have had much more trouble adapting and finding mates to form a group,” she says.

The gorillas were released on Mount Tshiaberimu, a remote part of Virunga National Park, where only eight Grauer’s gorillas remained at the time. According to scientists from GRACE and Re:wild, this local population might have vanished within 50 years without intervention. With the addition of the new females, they say they hope to see the population grow.

“When they met the silverback from the wild group, he had only one other female and an infant. Slowly, the four GRACE gorillas began nesting outside, moving closer to the silverback. On New Year’s, it was super exciting — we started to observe mating. This is what we’re ultimately trying to achieve,” Fawcett says.

And because they come from other regions of the eastern DRC, the four gorillas also bring with them unique genes, which will help reduce the risk of inbreeding.

“Genetic mixing is very important, especially for a species like the Grauer’s gorilla, where there are so few individuals and limited genetic diversity,” Grundmann says. “For the medium- to long-term survival of the species, we need enough genetic variety so that if a disease appears, natural resistance can emerge and help the species adapt.”

Still, the release site raises serious concerns. Virunga National Park has faced security challenges since the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. The influx of refugees and the emergence of numerous armed groups have increased pressure on the park. The situation deteriorated further with the resurgence of M23, an armed rebel movement backed by the Rwandan army, in late 2021. This has led to clashes between the DRC armed forces, other militias, and local self-defense groups known as the Wazalendo. Since early 2025, M23 has seized control of large parts of the park, which has fueled poaching, deforestation and illegal trafficking.

Despite this, the team at GRACE say they remain optimistic about the gorillas’ safety.

“We are sure the gorillas will survive,” says Jackson Kabuyaya Mbeke, GRACE’s DRC director. “This armed group — they are just communities, they’re not from far away. That’s why we put communities at the center of all our activities, to break the cycle of poaching and wildlife trafficking.”

According to the sanctuary, most of their staff of about 100 were recruited from nearby communities, particularly from the Indigenous Nandi people.

“We recruited the caregivers and trained them at GRACE. So they will be both caregivers and ambassadors — raising awareness within their own families,” Kabuyaya says.

Kabuyaya himself grew up near the GRACE reserve, and says gorillas hold a special place in his culture.

“I grew up with these gorillas. I could hear them. So, they are our identity. They are our icons. They are our flags,” he says.

Still, the security situation remains fragile. In March 2025, Virunga National Park authorities discovered a young gorilla caught in a poacher’s trap. Mongabay reached out to the park authorities for more information on the security measures in place for this translocation, but received no response.

Since December 2024, the four female gorillas have left the rewilding facility built on Mount Tshiaberimu, which was set up to ease their return to the wild.

“It’s very beautiful to witness, and very moving,” Grundmann says. “But these reintroduction projects shouldn’t distract from the bigger issue: protecting wild species and their habitats. Reintroduction is a consequence of deforestation and poaching. There are laws to protect nature, and they must be enforced. We’re always walking a tightrope with the political context. These are unstable areas, and the project could fall apart overnight.”

But for now, the four females are adapting to their home — and conservationists say they hope they will soon have offspring of their own.

This article by Elodie Toto was first published by Mongabay.com on 25 June 2025. Lead Image: Ndijingala, an eastern lowland gorilla, at the GRACE sanctuary before being reintroduced to the wild. Image by Bobby Neptune for GRACE.

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