Twiggs was born in the wild in Cameroon around the year 1997. She and another female gorilla, Brighter, was smuggled across the border to Nigeria as infants to be sold as pets on the locale pet marked.

When Pitchou was very small, she was brought to Hotel Ilomba in Kribi to be sold, after her mother had been killed by hunters. She stayed there for three days, until the hotel owners could no longer bare to watch her suffer. The family donated her to the LWC.

Moja has been helping rescue gorillas in Africa. An English version of the gorilla tales book is being published as part of the Year of the Gorilla (YOG), a UN initiative, to raise funds to finance distribution of the book in Congo-Brazzaville and to support a project aimed at the rescue of the critically endangered Cross River Gorilla.

Gorilla fairy tales