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. Dr. Eddy Kambale Syaluha, head veterinarian with Gorilla Doctors, in a helicopter with one of the four eastern lowland gorillas in October 2024…This article was originally published on Mongabay