In an extremely rare sight, a wild gorilla has been captured on camera cuddling with her newborn baby. Moments like this are rarely noticed, let alone captured on tape. Yet, a group of conservationists managed to witnessed the lovely scenes in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, in the Republic of the Congo.
While observing the western lowland gorilla population in the Nouabalé-Ndoki park, a research team from the Wildlife Conservation Society came upon a gorilla mom and her one-week-old baby. The two offered an emotional display of mother-baby bonding. Gorillas are usually overprotective when comes to their newborn babies and won’t let anyone getting close to them in the first weeks after getting birth.
In their weeks of like, the baby gorillas rely on their mom 100% for food, body temperatures and of course protection. Even so, with all the efforts, baby gorillas still have to face some extremely tough challenges as only one in three newborns get to the adulthood. Unfortunately, the odds are cutting lower due to human hand, too.
You can watch the beautiful moment, here:
“Many of the factors that count against baby gorillas are natural hazards linked to their environment, such as predators – mostly leopards,” Wildlife Conservation Society Congo director, Mark Gately told National Geographic. “Unfortunately there is also a significant risk posed by human activities.”
Western lowland gorillas are part of the critically endangered species list, after their numbers dramatically decreased over the last decades. Right now, there are around 150,000 to 250,000 western lowland gorillas in the wild and nearly 60% of them live in the Republic of the Congo.