1,061. That is the number of gorillas that ran down the streets of Denver Halloween morning. With a sight like this you may think the “Gorilla Run” is held to celebrate Halloween, however it celebrates the lives of the 720 mountain gorillas alive today because of the run. The fee and donations for the race raises money so the number of endangered mountain gorillas can continue to grow.The Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund has made it their mission to help save and protect the lives of the mountain gorillas in Africa. The success is in the growing numbers. Before the “Gorilla Run” made its debut six years ago, there were around 248 mountain gorillas in the wild, today there are about 720 due to these efforts.
Running in a full on gorilla costume for 5.6 kilometers was worth the heat to save the life of a gorilla. The 1,061 of us that came together to run also broke the Guinness World Record for the amount of people dressed as gorillas in the same location at the same time.
Even though I felt as if I was running in a sauna with skewed vision from my gorilla mask, I was going bananas over the creativity of the costumed gorillas. There were no plain gorillas in sight. One man went so far as to put his gorilla on stilts, others bladed, boarded or biked. But most gorillas ran in their gorilla costumes that were decked out from bridezillas to hippie gorillas to hula gorillas. The impact goes beyond the crazy costumes and the record books. The impact lies in effecting the survival of one of the world’s most endangered animals, the mountain gorillas of Rwanda.
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