Along with many other apes, Brighter and Twigs were orphaned in Cameroon and smuggled into Nigeria as infants to be sold on the notorious Sabon Gari animal market in Kano (Nigeria) where they were finaly bought by a Lebanese businessman. In 2002, after keeping the animals for more than 7 years in his compound, the gorillas were confiscated. The Nigerian Ministry of Environment arranged with their Cameroonian collegues in Yaoundé to repatriate them to Limbe for placement at the LWC. The rescue of Brighter and Twigs was a cooperative effort between the Governments of Cameroon and Nigeria and reflects what we hope will be a new era of cooperation to protect wildlife.