MOUNTAIN GORILLAS - Rwanda Holds Naming Ceremony for Rare Mountain Gorilla Babies

Scotsman.com has news on the naming ceremony for 30 endangered mountain gorillas babies.

President Paul Kagame joined villagers and conservation workers on the edges The Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda today to give names to 30 rare mountain gorilla babies – including the only recorded set of twins to survive to the age of 1.

Conservation workers and researchers traditionally name primates they track after identifying each one based on the patterns formed by wrinkles on their faces.

Saturday’s naming ceremony, however, is the largest and most public ever held in this small central African nation.

The ceremony – including traditional dances by warriors armed with sticks resembling spears and poems praising development projects financed by revenue from mountain gorilla tracking – will become an annual event intended to pull in more visitors to Rwanda’s leading tourist attraction, said Fidelle Ruzigandekwa, head of the Rwanda Wildlife Agency.