Andre Bauma met Ndakasi when she was only 2 months old. It was just after she held the body of her mother who had passed away. A decade later, Ndakasi has died holding onto Mr. Bauma. She was just 14 years old.
Between these two embraces Ndakasi mountain gorilla living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, became a global sensation.
In the year 2019 Ndakasi (en-DA-ka-see) as well as another mountain gorilla female, named Ndeze photographed by a ranger in the Virunga National Park, in Congo in the Congo, where they resided.
The image was shared on Instagram the image went viral. The photo shows a park ranger Mathieu Shamavu wearing T-shirt wearing and taking photo-ops with the two gorillas in the background. One gorilla is perched over her left shoulder with her chin lowered, an unassuming expression on her face looking up at the camera. The other one is leaning forward like she's determined to get in the picture, and there is perhaps a smile on the outside the mouth. Heyy! There's another ranger behind them with his hands in his back, staring intently into the frame.
"YES It's true!" the park wrote in the caption after the photo was uploaded on the internet. The image was a hit on the internet and brought a new round of interest to Ndakasi who, up to the time of posting, had already enjoyed a prestigious life.
Her birth was in 2007 and was a part of the Kabirizi group, which is one of eight families of gorillas in the park's 3,000 square miles located in between Uganda as well as Rwanda. When when she when she was born there were 780 mountain gorillas living on the planet, as per the park. Today, the number has risen to more than 1,100, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
The mountain gorillas are found in in national parks of Uganda, Rwanda and Congo. Changes in the climate, traps that are set to kill other species, human-infested encroachment and gun-toting people are the top gorilla obstacles to their survival.
In April 2007 the Congolese park announced that its rangers found Ndakasi "clinging on to the dead corpse of her mom who was shot dead by militia members just hours before."
Without any relatives of the gorilla's infant at the time, park rangers deemed it to be risky to let her go on her own. They brought her to a rescue centre and she was greeted by the Mr. Bauma, the park declared. "All the night, Andre held the baby near with him." according to the parks.
In 2014, he as well as gorillas were featured on an documentary called " Virunga." In the meantime Ms. Bauma and Ndakasi had become close.
"I was with her and feed her" the BBC quoted Mr. Bauma as saying in 2014. "I can claim to be my mother."
On Wednesday, the park declared that Ndakasi was dead on the 26th of September. 26 in the midst of "a long-term illness that caused her health rapidly deteriorated."
In the morning, the Park informed"Mr. Bauma was not available to speak with reporters.
In a statement to the public in a statement, Ms. Bauma said that getting to be aware of Ndakasi was a process that "helped me to comprehend the relationship between great apes and humans and the reason we must take every step to safeguard them."
"I loved her like a kid," he said, "and her cheerful personality made me smile on my face each when I met her."
