Ellen DeGeneres got a gorilla conservation fund for her 60th birthday

There's no present greater than the survival of great apes.

Ellen DeGeneres turned 60 recently, and her wife Portia de Rossi gave her present on air, despite having almost entirely lost her voice.

"It's your sixtieth birthday," said de Rossi, "and this gift had to be really special, and it had to represent who you are and what you really care about."

Inspired by Ellen's personal hero Dian Fossey, de Rossi gave her a truly unique and wonderful gift. She set up a fund and campus in Ellen DeGeneres' name at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

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De Rossi described the campus as "a most incredible centre for tourism, education, and for further scientific research."

"It's good to be loved it's profound to be understood," said DeGeneres of the gift, "and she understands me because that is the best gift that anybody could have given me."

Since Dian Fossey started her work in 1967, the mountain population of Rwanda has doubled -- although the total population is still threatened, with only 880 mountain gorillas alive in the world today. They are listed as "critically endangered" on the IUCN red list.

Not many things are better than birthday cake, but helping to preserve some of the most threatened and wonderful animals in the world probably counts.