A reintroduced Grauer's gorilla is raising a baby in Virunga

Lulingu, a Grauer's gorilla returned to forest near Mount Tshiaberimu in Virunga National Park, is raising a baby. The Los Angeles Times reported on October 19, 2026, that mother and infant are doing well. Jackson Kabuyaya Mbeke, country director of the GRACE sanctuary, said the birth shows she has adapted to life outside the sanctuary's care. Further reintroductions are still only in a planning stage.

Lulingu arrived at the 40-acre sanctuary in 2016, when she was about 18 months old, after the Congolese wildlife authority and Gorilla Doctors recovered her from the wildlife trade. She grew up with adoptive gorilla mothers, then was released. Grauer's gorillas, also called eastern lowland gorillas, live only in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and are the largest living primates. The species has been listed as critically endangered since 2016, after earlier being listed as endangered. Conservationists estimate that about 77 percent of the population disappeared between 1994 and 2015, from roughly 16,900 animals to about 3,800. Those figures are estimates through 2015, not a new census. The paper also notes that insecurity in the park has not gone away. The birth does not change that. It does show that a gorilla taken from the trade can, years later, raise a wild-born infant.