#democraticrepublicofthecongo

It's September 24th, 🦍 World Gorilla Day. This worldwide celebration commemorates the day in 1967 that Dr. Dian Fossey established the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park. Karisoke, which is now run by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, is dedicated to the study, conservation, and protection of gorillas and their habitats. Dr. Fossey was an American zoologist who lived from 1932 to 1985. She spent much of her life in Africa and became the world's leading authority on the mountain gorilla. 🎥 Hollywood turned her bestselling book, "Gorillas in the Mist," into a blockbuster film starring Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Fossey.

There are many great organizations and individuals who are dedicated to fighting for the gorilla's survival. All four subspecies of gorillas – the Cross River gorilla, Grauer’s gorilla, mountain gorilla, and western lowland gorilla – are critically endangered because of illegal poaching, civil unrest, disease, and habitat destruction.

The mountain gorilla is the most critically endangered of them all, with only around 800 left in the wild. They’re found within high-altitude mountain and bamboo forests in just two isolated groups – one in the Virunga volcanoes – spanning the borders of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and one in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, contiguous with DRC’s Sarambwe Nature Reserve. Mountain gorillas are completely vegetarian, feeding on leaves, shoots, and stems. They live in groups of several females with their young and one dominant adult "silverback" male – easily identified by his huge size, regal demeanor, and a patch of silver hair on his back.

It's October 18th, World Okapi Day. Deep in the heart of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, hidden in the dense rainforest, lives the mysterious and enigmatic okapi. In the wild, this shy, elusive creature is rarely seen by humans. When people do see an okapi for the first time (usually at a zoo), most imagine it must be related to the zebra because of its stripes, but the okapi is not related to the zebra - it's related to the giraffe, and is in fact the giraffe's only living relative.

World Okapi Day was created to celebrate this special, endangered animal and protect the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in which it lives. Despite the protected status of the reserve and its wild animals, the okapi's continued existence is threatened by habitat destruction, slash-and-burn agriculture, illegal gold mining, and bushmeat poaching. Today gives the Mbuti People who live in the reserve a chance to celebrate the hard work they've accomplished to conserve the natural environment they share with their national animal, which is so important to their culture and traditions.