The drive to survive, and even to thrive, is both fundamental and powerful. We can think of no better example than that of Lengui, a female western lowland gorilla who has suffered terribly at the hands of man on two separate occasions. At times her life has been unbearable, and yet she has defied the odds, and inspires us all. We hope you read her story and then take a moment to reflect on how much courage and determination you would need to endure what she has experienced.

A Cruel Fate
Born in the wild, and safe in her mother’s arms, her early years in her family group should have been filled with affection and play. Due to a cruel series of events, she was denied that opportunity.

Lengui was less than two years old when she lost her entire family. We will never know the full extent of the horrors she witnessed but, according to the villagers who took her, she was found in one of their fields planted with maize. The field was not only used to grow crops. None of the traumatised youngster’s family were with her and she was sitting by the only thing that remained. The severed hand of her mother, still caught in one of the illegal snares that had been set in the field in the hope of catching smaller prey for bush-meat.

A Chance to Survive
Her tiny body was all that saved her. She was too small to eat and had no immediate value to sell on. But she was worth keeping alive, and so she was tethered to a stake and fed small amounts of fruit. Malnourished and distressed she could easily have succumbed over those first few days, but she managed to survive. Soon word spread, and a few days into her captivity a scout from Odzala National Park was sent to verify her existence, and to rescue her. When the scout returned to the Park, he immediately gave the dirty and exhausted infant a bottle of water mixed with honey. She eagerly drank it before falling asleep in a box full of fresh green leaves. A week later she arrived at Brazzaville Gorilla Orphanage run by The Aspinall Foundation. The year was 1994, Lengui was less than half her expected body weight, and her chances of survival were uncertain.

Lengui 1994 in Odzala with F Dowett-Lemaire

At the orphanage she received what she was missing most, the physical contact and affection essential to young gorillas. She was also treated for intestinal worms, and the infected sores from the rope that had been tied around her waist. Unlike many orphan gorillas, she survived the first few weeks, regained her health, and soon joined a group of other orphans rehabilitating in a small forest in Brazzaville. In June 1997 civil war erupted. Lengui and the rest of her group were evacuated under fire to the coastal city of Pointe Noire, where she remained for almost a year and a half.

Lengui 1998 in Pointe Noire by Amos Courage, The Aspinall Foundation.

Return to the Wild
Life was now full of promise and in December 1998 Lengui was released into the Lesio-Louna Reserve, together with the rest of her group, three males and three other females. Lengui thrived in her new surroundings, so much so that in January 2001 she left the group with whom she had been released and joined the dominant group in the reserve, the first true case of female transfer between groups ever observed in released orphan gorillas. We were thrilled at how well she was doing and excited at the prospect of the life she had ahead of her.


Lengui 2002 by Martin Harvey

Disaster Strikes a Second Time
While the core area of the Lesio-Louna Reserve was well patrolled by project staff, Lengui and her group were ranging further and further afield, into areas where hunters were able to avoid the park guards and lay snares. On the 26 April 2002, project staff located Lengui’s group in the south of the reserve and noticed something was wrong with her. Just like her mother eight years earlier, she had caught her hand in a snare. It was an unbelievably cruel recurrence of history. Unlike her mother though, by her sheer strength, she had ripped the snare from the ground. But her efforts to remove it from her hand caused the wire to tighten, cutting through her flesh and leaving her fingers dead and an infection rising rapidly through her arm. Photos taken at the time are too distressing to share in an open publication, but she would have been in considerable pain. The prognosis was not good; her hand was beyond repair, and the infection would soon be beyond control. To save her life a vet amputated her arm below the elbow and prescribed a course of antibiotics and regular bandage changes. Despite the odds being against her for the second time, Lengui survived.

Another Chance for Freedom
As soon as she regained her health Lengui was one of a group of five gorillas released back to the wild at the start of 2003. In 2005 Tony King, The Aspinall Foundation's Reintroduction Coordinator commented: ‘She was present for the first-ever birth to reintroduced gorillas, in 2004, but it wasn’t hers - she never really chose the silverback in that group, they were rehabilitated together, she probably considered him more of a brother to her. She was waiting for another chance.”

He was right. That chance came when Lengui transferred to a different reintroduced silverback and successfully raised a daughter, quietly and without attention.

Lengui with baby by Virginia Rodriguez Ponga 

Lengui Disappears
After several years of successfully monitoring Lengui we began to fear the worse when in 2014 she was no longer observed. Monitoring wild gorillas can be difficult, and groups can travel outside of the range of our regular patrols but, in this case, the silverback that had headed her small group was spotted alone. It was a worrying sign, and over the passage of time it seemed likely that something must have happened to her. It was four long years before she was spotted again.

Lengui spotted on a camera trap in 2018 © The Aspinall Foundation Madagascar

Everyone at The Aspinall Foundation was delighted when we saw that first image, captured on a camera trap in 2018. Not least Amos Courage, The Aspinall Foundation’s Director of Overseas Projects, and Tony King, both of whom have been instrumental over the years in taking action on the occasions when Lengui’s life had hung in the balance. It was also a special moment for the team at our project site in Congo who had always hoped to see her again.

The Cycle of Life Continues
We will never know where Lengui spent those missing four years, but since she was caught on camera in 2018, she has been seen on several occasions, usually as part of a group.

In a recent visit to the Congo, Tony King studied dozens of videos collected by a network of motion-sensor camera traps placed in the Lesio-Louna gorilla reserve, the first reserve ever to home a reintroduced gorilla population, co-managed by the Congolese Ministry of Forest Economy and The Aspinall Foundation. Lengui appeared in a handful of the videos as part of a small group with three other adult females and led by a young silverback named Elonga, who himself was only the third baby ever born to reintroduced gorillas, in 2006. In footage from 2025 the three other females were all spotted with babies and then, in the footage taken towards the end of that year, Lengui looked like she was heavily pregnant. Time passed and then, in April 2026, the lead gorilla researcher in the Lesio-Louna, Elie Djoli Camara, sent us some thrilling news. Lengui had again been caught on camera, this time with a new-born baby estimated at around one week old. As Tony King said at the time: ‘We’ve been waiting for this news for months, it seemed like an age until Elie finally sent the message we’d been waiting for. It’s wonderful news, and another chapter in Lengui’s remarkable life story’. 


Lengui with her new baby in 2026 © The Aspinall Foundation.

Lengui is now just over 30 years old and is reaching the end of her reproductive lifespan. Her age, and the partial loss of her arm, will make motherhood harder for her, but seeing her newborn tucked safely in the crook of what remains of her right arm we know this determined and courageous female will continue to inspire us all.

We hope her amazing story has years still to come but we would like to end this chapter with the words of Amos Courage, who undertook her evacuation from Brazzaville during the civil war:

“Lengui’s story is unique in many ways, and yet there are still gorillas being orphaned today, taken from the wild, and trafficked around the world. We remain committed to providing those that are rescued with the opportunity to return to the wild. We hope Lengui’s story, and those of many others also successfully rewilded over several decades in partnership with the governments of Congo and Gabon, will help inform and inspire authorities the world over to do what it takes to return trafficked gorillas to the forests of their birth. Their stories are only just beginning.”

Lengui’s story is one of courage, survival and second chances. Because people were there when she needed them most, she was given the chance to survive. Donate today to help protect gorillas and give them the chance to return to the wild, where their stories can begin again.