The Umubano Gorilla Family consists of 14 individual mountain gorillas. The group is led by Charles, a dominant silverback. It has 6 silverback gorillas, 3 black back, 2 adult females, 2 juveniles and 1 infant.
Umubano is a Kinyarwanda word which means living together in harmony or neighborliness.
This group was once part of the Amahoro Group. It separated from the Amahoro group after a fight that saw Charles the dominant silverback of Umubano winning Ubumwe (the dominant silverback of the Amahoro group).
Charles was tired of unending fights in Amahoro group that were due to lots of invasions by rival gorillas. As Charles matured into a silverback of the same rank as Ubumwe, he could also not stand being given orders and decided to stage a fight and challenge Ubumwe. The fight went on for weeks and then months.
Accordingly, Charles persuaded twelve like-minded gorillas to join him in forming a family that believes in other ways of solving problems apart from violence. He managed to snatch from Ubumwe a few females and formed his own group; thus Umubano was formed.
Since then, he has commanded respect and recognition from Ubumwe. We have observed, on various occasions, interactions between the two silverbacks, but no fighting has been seen since the great battle ended. There have been normal interactions between him and Ubumwe and no fights have been reported.