Rushegura's Kabukojo challenges dominant Silverback Wmirima

The humble but strong soon to be Silver Back of Rushegura Mountain Gorilla Family in the northern Sector of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, seems tired of playing second fiddle to the dominant Silverback, Mwirima. The dark –faced Mwirima who has for a while enjoyed unchallenged supremacy in a rather stable family of Rushegura, a few days ago underwent a shock from his wildest of imaginations when Blackback (BB) Kabukojo caused a mutiny in the leadership ranks of the family and even dared to flee with over thirteen members most of them females as he attempted to establish his own throne.

When trackers went to the group for the routine monitoring, they could only trace six to their surprise. It was after a concerted looking around for well over eight hours and they discovered that the group had had sub divisions of two groups. Mwirima for the days to come only had seven individuals under his command with the rest determined to follow the youthful Blackback in a distance of over 700 meters. This confidence the group members have in Kabukojo can only spell doom for Mwirima who should brace himself for a succession battle in the near future. Fault lines have emerged and the writing is now on the wall.

If it was not for the meeting of a wild family that put up a serious battle for its home range, probably a new family would have been founded by now. As a result, Kabukojo had to lead his group back to the parent home range where Mwirima was and the two groups eventually merged rather grudgingly. Till hours ago, the family was feeding near each other with the two splits having different feeding locations. Rushegura one of the biggest families in Bwindi with 20 members, has been peaceful and stable. It has had the greatest composition of Adult females with only one Black back whose loyalty to the family has been solid and unquestionable. Kabukojo on the other hand is a very strong and energetic young lad accredited with fighting many successful battles to protect the family territory. Mwirima however is aging by day and has lost a lot of stamina since his famous secession from Habinyanja as a youthful young man.