We are excited to announce the name of Uzumma's baby boy: Kitoko (ki-TOE-koh), which means beautiful or handsome in the African languages, Lingala /Kikongo. The opportunity to name the baby gorilla was given to Woodland Park Zoo Board member Rosemarie Havranek and her family, Nathan, Cameron, and Conor Myhrvold, as a small token of gratitude for their long-time, generous support of Woodland Park Zoo’s mission to save wildlife and inspire everyone to make conservation a priority in their lives.

Hope has a name: Kitoko

Photo credit Mondika Gorilla Project

Established in 1998, the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project was founded with the aim of preserving wildlife in the Congo Basin by studying the apes, the ecosystems, and the forces that threaten their survival. In 2014, the study area expanded to include the Djeke Triangle region outside the Nouabale-Ndoke National Park – resulting in the Mondika Gorilla Project.

The program is currently monitoring specific aspects of ape coexistence, forest ecology and change, and ape-human health risks. Local communities and indigenous people assist in addressing the opportunity-challenge nexus that factors significantly in the ape-human overlap that typifies ape sites in this region.