The Fossey Fund team celebrated both Endangered Species and Biodiversity Day this past Friday with secondary students of Nyamulimirwa school, one of the new schools integrated into our conservation education program. Our staff provided awareness-raising sessions on Volcanoes National Park’s biodiversity to the students and distributed school materials including 1325 books, 1325 pens and 265 mathematical sets to 265 students of Nyamulimirwa school as a way to give them basic needs of a student and motivate them to actively participate in conservation of endangered mountain gorillas and other biodiversity found in the VNP. "I was happy to attend today's event. I learned that even though the mountain gorilla population is increasing, they still need a lot of protection to survive and we (students) should also play a big role in their conservation. We thank the Fossey fund for bringing us a special gift of school materials'' says Olivier Bibwireyesu, a student at Nyamulimirwa school. #biodiversity #mountaingorillas #conservation 

📸: Cedric Ujeneza ...

The habitat gorillas live in depends on the rich biodiversity that shares their forest home to stay healthy. Without each link in the biodiversity chain, the forest habitat and the animals that live in them will suffer. So, today as we celebrate #internationaldayforbiologicaldiversity we invite you to join us in celebrating gorillas and the incredible biodiversity around them because without one, the others can't survive.

📸: Yntze van der Hoek ...

Today is #endangeredspeciesday and while you might think we protect just gorillas, we actually protect so many more endangered or threatened species that share a forest home with the gorillas we protect! We hope you will join us in bringing awareness and action to the need to save the thousands of animals threatened with extinction. While extinction can’t be reversed, it can be prevented! #wildlifeconservation #nature #gorillas #biodiversity #saveaspecies ...

This past weekend, the Fossey Fund invited students to join other bird watchers across the world to celebrate Global Big Day, which is an annual celebration of the birds around us! Through our citizen science program, our team was able to join 30 students from two schools to watch and count birds in two different locations outside of Volcanoes National Park. 

"It's always a good time with my fellow students when we go out in the environment to watch and count birds during Global Big Day. I was surprised and excited to see the endangered Gray crowned crane today. We can't thank the Fossey Fund enough for providing these activities that help us gain more knowledge about nature and birds in particular.” - Ishimwe Patrick, a student and member of the environment club at APICUR school.

📸: Yntze van der Hoek & Cedric Ujeneza ...

Today is #GlobalBigDay - a day of citizen science celebrating birding! Our teams in Rwanda, The DRC and US are participating today! Take a look at the birds in years past that we have identified! Want to know how you can participate? Head on over to @team_ebird and find out how you can submit all the birds you see today! #wildlifeconservation ...