Andre Bauma, park ranger: 'We have to save those babies'

Park ranger Andre Bauma playing with orphaned mountain gorilla, Ndakasi, in Virunga National Park, home to a quarter of the world's estimated 880 surviving wild mountain gorillas. Photos: TNS

Anadre Bauma rolls in the grass with a young mountain gorilla, Ndakasi. He hugs the hulking hairy creature whom he thinks of as his own child, and slaps her chest affectionately.

The great ape is part of park ranger Bauma’s second family at the Senkwekwe Centre for gorilla orphans in the 7,700sqkm Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo, where about a quarter of the world’s estimated 880 surviving wild mountain gorillas reside.