After years of empty flights over part of Virunga, the view has changed. Elephants are crossing back into the park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and mountain gorillas have recorded a run of healthy births, including rare twins.
Things are looking up in the Virunga Mountains, where scores of elephants have been returning across the border following a reduction in militia violence. This spring, 9 healthy births have also been recorded among the mountain gorillas, including twins that a ranger officer called “a very encouraging sign.”
There were once thousands of African bush elephants roaming freely between Virunga National Park in Congo and Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda. But mountains, jungles and borderlands are among the areas most commonly used by violent rebel groups around the world, and Virunga includes all three.
The park has suffered from decades of violent insurgency in DR Congo, with elephants poached by rebels to sustain themselves. In recent years, however, 480 elephants from the Ugandan side have been documented travelling back into Virunga.
“For years I haven’t seen any animals when I flew over this area, just rebels,” said Anthony Caere, a Belgian anti-poaching helicopter pilot at Virunga National Park.
“Now not only are we seeing the elephants, which is an unbelievable sight from above, but we’re noticing the impact of such a big herd on the park. They’re restoring everything back to what it was 50 years ago and doing so much faster than we could have imagined. If the elephants continue to stay here in these numbers, this place will look totally different in just a few years.”
The returning elephants are also changing the park itself. Their size and appetites are cutting trails through the forest, scything back invasive shrubs and expanding clearings. The area is beginning to look like a “forested savannah” again.
There have also been sightings of buffalo, Ugandan kob, warthogs, topi and even a pair of lions.
Virunga is the oldest national park on the continent and is home to extraordinary biodiversity. It has received millions in aid money from Re:Wild, Global Wildlife Conservation, the European Union and other organisations, including from a fund established by Leonardo DiCaprio.
That backing has helped the park scale back poaching and put development programs in place to try to steer impoverished locals away from illegal agriculture, poaching or militia life.
The recent stability has also benefited the park’s mountain gorillas. A female in the Bageni family, the park’s largest gorilla family group with 59 members, was recently observed to have given birth to twins. The babies are now 2 months old.
Jacques Katutu, head of gorilla monitoring, said the twins are developing well and that their mother is managing the demands of two babies, which is uncommon among gorillas.
“The five births recorded since the start of 2026, including twins in the Bageni family, are a very encouraging sign,” Mr. Katutu said in a statement. “Behind every confirmed birth is the patient and dedicated work of our community trackers. Present in the field every day, often under challenging conditions, they are the first to witness these extraordinary moments.”
The births add to the signs of recovery in a park that has long been shaped by conflict. Alongside the gorilla births, the return of 480 elephants from Uganda has brought back the ecosystem engineering associated with the largest land animal on Earth.
According to the account from Virunga, the elephants are helping restore the park to what it was decades ago. Caere said the change is already visible from the air.
“They’re restoring everything back to what it was 50 years ago and doing so much faster than we could have imagined,” he said.
