Photos show park rangers taking selfies with gorillas they were protecting.
Two pictures of park rangers posing for selfies with gorillas went viral in November 2024 when the X account Nature Is Amazing posted them (archived). “Anti-Poachers in the DR Congo taking a selfie with the gorillas they are protecting,“ the post read.
One of the photos also circulated in August when the X account Creepy.org posted it, asking whether gorillas were “really this friendly with humans?”
The photos authentically show friendly human-gorilla relations, but it is important to note that these are not ordinary gorillas. They are orphans who have been raised with humans since infancy.
In April 2019, Mathieu Shamavu, a ranger at Virunga National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, took a photo of himself with two orphaned gorillas under his care:
The picture was wildly popular and went viral shortly after it was posted on social media. It has periodically gone viral several times since then, including in an April 2021 Reddit thread titled “Anti-poacher takes selfie with gorillas they are protecting.”
This is an accurate description of the photo. As reported by The Associated Press in 2019, Shamavu “said he was checking his phone when he noticed two female orphaned gorillas, Ndakazi and Ndeze, mimicking his movements, so he took a picture with them.” According to Virunga National Park, these “gorilla gals are always acting cheeky so this was the perfect shot of their true personalities!”
The two gorillas were orphaned by the actions of poachers, Shamavu explained, which is a persistent threat in the Virunga region. In May 2020, rumors circulated that Shamavu and the two gorillas pictured were killed by poachers. While an attack in April 2020 did take the lives of several rangers, the park confirmed to Reuters that neither Shamavu nor the two gorillas he was pictured with were victims of that attack.
An April 2019 article by the Daily Mail included additional pictures of the rangers and gorillas together, including the second photograph shared in the November 2024 X post. That photo reportedly shows Patrick Sadiki, the ranger in the background of Shamavu’s selfie.
Because the photos are real and accurately described, the claim is true.
Sources
“Congo Park Ranger Tells of Taking Viral Selfie with Gorillas.” Yahoo News, 25 Apr. 2019, https://sg.news.yahoo.com/congo-park-ranger-tells-taking-182039200.html.
Mcmanus, Leigh. “Anti-Poaching Ranger’s Extraordinary Selfies with Two Gorillas.” Mail Online, 20 Apr. 2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6942325/Anti-poaching-rangers-extraordinary-selfies-two-gorillas-look-HUMAN.html.
virungaorg. “Armed Attack – Updated Statement.” Virunga National Park, 24 Apr. 2020, https://virunga.org/news/updated-statement-from-virunga-national-park-on-recent-attack/.
“You Might Have Recently Seen Caretakers Mathieu and Patrick’s Amazing Selfie with Female Orphaned Gorillas Ndakazi and Ndeze inside the Senkwekwe Center at Virunga National Park.” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/virunga/posts/10157037198360782. Accessed 2 Aug. 2024.