It’s the babies’ hands, big and supple and jet black, that you notice first. Hands like a carpenter’s. Hands that already look like they have been long in the world. Hands that are called into active service from their first day. Because, when a baby gorilla is born, there is only one thing it absolutely must do to survive – hang on. These mitts belong to the newest arrivals in a remarkable group of gorillas in the Congo’s Lefini Reserve, collectively called ‘the Djekes’. The Djekes know how to hang on. Made up of nine Western Lowland Gorillas (properly, and rather eye-catchingly, named Gorilla gorilla gorilla), all orphans of the bushmeat trade that has ravaged central Africa’s ape population, the group was reintroduced into its natural habitat in 2004 by the Projet Protection des Gorilles (PPG), a project sponsored by Britain’s John Aspinall Foundation. In the past two months, something wonderful has happened: four gorillas have been born to four different mothers in the group. The babies were only the second, third, fourth and fifth gorillas ever to be born to reintroduced parents (the first, Teke, another Aspinall triumph who was born two years ago across the river, […]