The life of Ndakasi, a gorilla who went viral

gorilla

Ndakasi, a beloved mountain gorilla who went viral after posing for a relaxed selfie with rangers, has died after a long illness aged 14. She passed away in the arms of one of the rangers who rescued her as a baby, Andre Bauma, at a gorilla orphanage at Virunga – Africa’s oldest national park – in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr Bauma rescued Ndakasi as a two-month-old in 2007 after poachers killed her parents. Ndakasi was still clinging to her dead mother when they found her. With no relatives, rangers decided it was too unsafe to let Ndakasi back out into the wild. She was raised at the orphanage, where Mr Bauma is the manager. Ndakasi shot to global fame in 2019 when she and another female mountain gorilla, Ndeze, photobombed a selfie taken by another ranger. They were trying to imitate the rangers who raised them, a park official said.(BBC)…[+]