Capturing emotions and moments in time is what Phil Moore does as a photographer.
In July 2012 while visiting Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo he caught an image of a gorilla in mourning over the loss of its mother, who was killed by poachers. Similar to humans, gorillas are devoted to their family groups, so the loss of a family member is just as traumatic to the gorillas as it is to humans.
The gorilla that was photographed is an orphan, along with three other gorillas who were raised in a sanctuary, reported Diply. Patrick Karabaranga, a park ranger, has personally helped raise the gorilla and because of this the two have formed an obvious friendship.
In the entire world, there are only 790 mountain gorillas left, according to Save A Gorilla. Out of that number, there are a total of 200 mountain gorillas that are living within the sanctuary of the park. These numbers could be even lower due to the extensive poaching in order to sell gorilla meat.
There are other dangers to the local primates, each day 80,000 acres of rainforest are demolished due to, logging, mining, and even agriculture expansions, reported The Dodo.
The sanctuary is also a place to give them the time that they need to breed. Female mountain gorillas reach sexual maturity when they become 10-years of age and then are able to reproduce only every four to eight-years.
The situation becomes even more difficult because the male gorillas do not sexually mature until they are 15-years-old. The sanctuary that is offered to gorillas at the park is the start of a long journey to rebuild the mountain gorilla populations. There is hope for the peaceful primates.
