KINIGI, Rwanda (AP) – Youths wearing gorilla costumes and rubber boots grunted and scampered in front of Rwanda’s president on Saturday during the ceremonial naming of 24 baby mountain gorillas in the African country, where the critically endangered animals live in volcano-studded forests that are visited by increasing numbers of foreign tourists.
The young gorillas, whose families are closely monitored by trackers and researchers, were in their wild habitat and not at the naming event in Kinigi, a village near the entrance to Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park. But thousands of people, including students, soldiers, villagers and diplomats, gathered there to celebrate the threatened population of mountain gorillas, whose image adorns numerous sculptures in Rwanda as well as a national currency banknote.
Against the backdrop of cloud-covered volcanic peaks, people waved little blue, green and yellow national flags and presidential bodyguards scanned the open-air venue as President Paul Kagame spoke from a dais, delighting conservationists who see small, landlocked Rwanda as a model for other African countries struggling to preserve their wildlife in the face of increased poaching and human encroachment on animal habitats.
“It’s really a showcase, the way they’re working, because you have buy-in from the highest political level,” said Allan Carlson, a Swedish conservationist who was in a group, including a Rwandan police official and a wildlife expert from Yale University in the United States, that announced the baby gorilla names. Dressed in white shirts and green robes, and carrying beaded sticks, they trailed the actors in gorilla suits across a wooden walkway strewn with straw and decorated with flowers.
The names bestowed on the gorillas included the words for “Wish,” ”Power,” ”Courage,” ”Conviviality” and “Ornament” in the Rwandan language.