IMG_4987 - Mountain Gorilla
It goes without saying that for most people the real reason to visit Rwanda is for the mountain gorillas (a sub-species of the eastern gorilla) and I'm not going to argue with anyone about that! The permitted hour I spent with them was one of the best wildlife experiences I have ever had.
Mountain gorillas are listed by the IUCN as critically endangered. They live only in the virunga volcanoes (which span Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC) and Uganda's nearby Bwindi forest. There are, roughly, 880 mountain gorillas left in the world (the only captive mountain gorillas are some orphans in the Virunga National Park in the DRC). The gorillas are basically stranded on these mountains as they don't like the lowland climate and, more importantly, are hemmed onto their mountain tops by a huge density of people and farms. However, what most media fails to explain (and the Lonely Planet guide is as guilty of this as anyone else) is that mountain gorillas have always been confined to these mountain tops and their population has always been very low. Before I went to see the gorillas I interviewed the head of the Volcanoes National Park and he explained to me that the mountain gorilla population in all three countries has actually increased by about 200% since the 1980's low point and is now likely to be close to the carrying capacity of the environment. So, yes they are critically endangered but this status rather hides the fact that this has been a very successful conservation program.
IMG_4987 - Mountain Gorilla
It goes without saying that for most people the real reason to visit Rwanda is for the mountain gorillas (a sub-species of the eastern gorilla) and I'm not going to argue with anyone about that! The permitted hour I spent with them was one of the best wildlife experiences I have ever had.
Mountain gorillas are listed by the IUCN as critically endangered. They live only in the virunga volcanoes (which span Rwanda, Uganda and the DRC) and Uganda's nearby Bwindi forest. There are, roughly, 880 mountain gorillas left in the world (the only captive mountain gorillas are some orphans in the Virunga National Park in the DRC). The gorillas are basically stranded on these mountains as they don't like the lowland climate and, more importantly, are hemmed onto their mountain tops by a huge density of people and farms. However, what most media fails to explain (and the Lonely Planet guide is as guilty of this as anyone else) is that mountain gorillas have always been confined to these mountain tops and their population has always been very low. Before I went to see the gorillas I interviewed the head of the Volcanoes National Park and he explained to me that the mountain gorilla population in all three countries has actually increased by about 200% since the 1980's low point and is now likely to be close to the carrying capacity of the environment. So, yes they are critically endangered but this status rather hides the fact that this has been a very successful conservation program.