Wild Gorillas Remember Their Former Caretakers 11 Years Later

gorilla-hug-tansy-aspinall-foundation-youtubegrab

Elephants are renowned for their stellar memory, but perhaps gorillas should be also able to boast the same. Eleven years after UK conservationist Damian Aspinall reintroduced a pair of Western lowland gorillas into the wild, he and his daughter, Tansy, met with them again in Gabon, West Africa.

Tansy was only a child when her father was raising the gorillas in Kent, England, which is why the pair wondered if they’d both be remembered by the apes. Fortunately (as the video below shows), the gorillas – named Djalta and Bimms – were more than pleased to see them.

For the past 15 years, the conservationist of the Aspinall foundation has been reintroducing captive gorillas back into the wild. The foundation manages over a million acres of wild jungle in West Africa; now and again, Damian claims the opportunity to check up on the gorillas that have been set free.

After many hours of calling out to Djalta and Bimms from a boat on the river, the gorillas appeared. They clearly recognized the humans, for they were gentle with both and even offered hugs. Damian recounted:

“It was fantastic to see the greeting I got. “I felt such love from them.”

“When it was time to leave, they held onto Tansy and you could see they didn’t want her to go,” he added.

WATCH the extraordinary video of Tansy and Damian reuniting with the gorillas that were reintroduced to the wild eleven years ago by clicking HERE.

What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!


This article (Wild Gorillas Remember Their Former Caretakers 11 Years Later) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com

Popular on True Activist