by Farley Mowat
On the twenty-eighth my trackers Celestin and Rwelekana got a message through to me on the park radio that they had found Nunkie dead on the slopes of Karisimbi where he had been living with his group of fourteen females and young. The trackers had sent the message to me via a park guard, but my radio went out and I couldn’t get details. For most of that horrid day I thought that fine old gentleman had been killed by poachers.
When the trackers finally got back to camp, they said he had died of natural causes. It was something to be grateful for, that at least he had not been murdered. I had his body brought back to camp and Dr. Bertrand climbed and we did an autopsy. Although the findings are not yet conclusive, it would seem that intestinal parasites, coupled with lung disease, were highly contributive to his death.
One of the deep-rooted causes for Dian’s distaste for tourism in the park was the disturbing possibility that the gorillas might contract human diseases from the visitors. In the latter part of 1978 she had been infuriated to discover that one of the Karisoke researchers was in the habit of defecating while with gorillas and permitting the animals to smell and even eat the feces. Ian Redmond’s studies had shown how prone these great apes were to parasitic infestations, and she feared that exposure to parasites contracted from Westerners, against which the animals would have evolved no defenses, might prove disastrous to them.
With this in mind she decided to take samples of the contents of Nunkie’s intestines with her to the United States for expert analysis.
We buried Nunkie, that good old man, in the cemetery near my cabin, but the problems are only now beginning.
A gorilla group cannot remain an integral unit without a silverback leader. Nunkie’s females and offspring spent several days bewilderingly circling around the site where his body had lain, not feeding, not knowing what to do. The death occurred seven kilometers from their normal range on Mt. Visoke. So we are now in the process of trying to “herd” them back here, where the lone silverback, Tiger, seems the perfect candidate to take over the group’s leadership.
The herding process is proving far more difficult than expected as the females want to return to the death site in search of Nunkie, seeming not to grasp the concept of Nunkie’s death. So far we’ve been able to keep them together and move them roughly four kilometers in this direction, but each day we become more apprehensive for fear they will just disintegrate all over the Virungas.
Well, it took a week, but eventually Nunkie’s ten offspring and four females reached Visoke, where they totally relaxed for the first time since his death. Tiger moved in as I had hoped and was able to get Fuddle, who willingly went with him as she was the only female in the group with regular cyclicity. The other females and young fled from Tiger’s further advances and went so far that they ran into Group 5, when Ziz acquired yet another mate, a second Nunkie female, Pandora.
The remaining two adult females and kids and adolescents fled west to get away from Group 5, and ran into Peanuts’s Group, consisting of all adult males, mostly survivors of Uncle Bert’s Group 4. You can well imagine the ruckus among the sex-starved males who hadn’t laid an eye on a female in years! I wonder when they’ll be able to settle down, if ever. I tell you, Peanuts and his gang are the busiest bunch of gorillas I’ve ever seen, but Nunkie’s widows and orphans now seem to be taken care of.
Burdened by Nunkie’s death, and of two minds as to whether it would be safe to leave Karisoke in Watts’s hands, Dian was increasingly distrait as the day approached for her to leave. She hid all the valuables, including the binoculars given her by Jean Gespar and her few bits of jewelry. She could not decide what to do with an orange folder that contained the “evidence” linking certain Rwandan officials with the illegal trade in ivory and gorillas. At the last minute she decided to take this with her, concealed in the bottom of one of her travel-worn suitcases.
On June 5 she arrived in Ithaca, where she spent the next ten days dealing with Digit Fund affairs and watching too much TV.
There isn’t that much else to do. Most of the people I knew are gone elsewhere now. I really like Stacey’s family, but I can take just so much of that “cosy comfort.” It hurts to watch but not be a part of it.
She was glad to fly off to Los Angeles and Universal City. On the nineteenth she did her duty by the Morris Animal Foundation and that night appeared on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson.
Since I was on Eastern time, the show was about six hours too late for me. To try to look perkier, some four hours before the show I set my hair and put some eye-drops in my eyes. The eyedrops (I didn’t have my glasses on) turned out to be insect repellent that was contained in exactly the same kind of tube as normal eyedrops. The right eye swelled to enormous proportions and turned totally red, so I decided to take a nap in my hotel room, but set two alarm clocks to awaken me prior to the arrival of the stretch-limo to the studio.
It goes without saying that I heard neither alarm. I did hear the phone ring to say that the driver was waiting at the hotel door. I finished dressing in the elevator, put on glooky makeup in the limo, met a lot of people at the studio, and was shown to my “dressing room,” where makeup and hairstylists descended with very negative headshakes.
I guess I was on the show, but my psyche and soma were still in Africa. Johnny was very easy to talk to. He almost, not quite, made me forget I was wearing my only pair of black heels, purchased in 1978, and which had holey soles. My one thought prior to going onstage was to keep my feet flat on the floor, but a few minutes before the curtain opened one of the buckles flew off my shoe. A security guard ran to search for a stapler and stapled the buckle on rapidly just before I emerged into the glare of the lights. With my first step into the limelight I felt the staples digging into my feet and my new hose running amok up my leg. I knew the attention of the whole world was riveted on the runner and the trickle of blood from the staple holes. But people kindly told me later that it went very well. I only wish I had been there too!
On the twenty-second she was in San Diego to take part in a seminar at the San Diego zoo on primate medical problems. While there she arranged for an examination of the specimens taken from Nunkie’s corpse. The parasitologists reported that Nunkie had been very heavily infested with hookworm, Necator americanus, a human parasite. It was their opinion that the infestation, even if not lethal in itself, would have fatally lowered Nunkie’s resistance to other diseases.
“Those gorillas that came into close contact with tourists may get the parasite by eating human feces, being touched by humans, or simply being in close contact with them.”
Dian was appalled by the implications.
The horrid thing is, it might not have been just tourists. He could have been infected by one of my own students!
Dian would also have had to come to terms with the fact that she bore the ultimate responsibility for having initiated and perfected the habituation procedure.
On June 26, Dian returned to San Francisco for the longest stay with the Prices she had been able to endure in many years. It was not intended as a filial visit.
It was my chance to do a lot of patching on this old lady. I surprised myself to find out how much of the machinery needed fixing. Guess I have to spend considerable time in the body shop.
Among the physical problems that engaged Dr. Spiegl and various other medical people were several teeth requiring root canal therapy; chronic obstructive lung disease; hypertension; paroxysmal auricular tachycardia; and a renewed sciatic condition of the left hip. None of these could be treated effectively in the brief time before Dian returned to Africa. In addition it was discovered that she was suffering from stress fractures in both feet at least partially due to a chronic calcium deficiency that had made all her bones increasingly fragile. On July 10, Dian underwent surgery that she had deferred for almost a year to remove the growth from her left eye.
This formidable list of ailments may sound worse than it actually was. At any rate, when Dian boarded the plane on July
18 for her flight back to Kigali, she was in good spirits.
Nice engineer from New Orleans going to Nairobi sits with me on Sabena flight. Dinner in Brussels. I ask him to visit camp. Who can tell …?
— 25 —
Dian’s buoyant mood did not long survive her return to Rwanda. While still at the Kigali airport she heard that the American ambassador and his wife, who had become good friends and loyal supporters, had been abruptly recalled to Washington. As she wrote to Deedee Blane, “Only then did I fully appreciate the expression ‘my heart churned.’ I grabbed a taxi to the residence, only to find that the worst had indeed happened—total emptiness.”
Back at camp, she wrote to Rosamond Carr, “The reason I was delayed coming back was because I finally got my eye surgery done and it required follow-up care. Also had been diagnosed as having a stress fracture. Wow, was it ever painful, and remains so. At any rate, six porters with a litter carried me up the relatively easy parts of the trail, while I slowly walked the hard parts.
“It was necessary to return to camp at once as Carole Le Jeune, the Belgian artist, had been there three days staying in a tent, since I had all the empty-cabin keys (simply could not allow Watts to get hold of them). Also there has been a Rwandan student, Joseph Munyaneza, here for about a week, and I didn’t want him to feel as though he were being neglected.
“Much to my sorrow my visa expires on August 9, which means I have to go back down to Kigali to get it renewed….
I am anxious to see you about something that really has me worried sick. When I returned to camp—the only place I’m really happy and functioning on all eight cylinders—I talked with each of the men separately to find out what had happened when I was away. Each told me that David Watts has been meeting with von der Becke and other members of the MGP and ORTPN to formulate a means by which they could take the camp away from me.
“They said I was to be given time to take down my personal belongings and that it would then be turned into a tourist camp to be run by my ex-students, including Amy Vedder (now back in Ruhengeri with husband Bill), Watts, the Harcourts, Roger Wilson, and others who were here in the past. They would work for Mountain Gorilla Project and occupy one cabin on alternating time periods, and the tourists the remaining cabins.
“Rosamond, there are so many of them and only one of me. It really is frightening. The men said that David told them I am costing the Rwandan government hundreds of dollars every day I stay here because I keep tourists away from the study groups by my presence. He told them that it wasn’t right that I had the cabins, furniture, equipment, trained men, and habituated gorillas that should be used by the MGP for tourists. Three of the men (out of four currently here) said they would quit if I was expelled from camp.
“They also said the President’s son came up during my absence, and Watts took him to Group 5 and told him the same story. The men really seem to think this is all going to eventuate next month—they are, or seem, very apprehensive. I just don’t know what to expect but take one day at a time and will breathe easier after I get my visa. I love this place and the work that I can do here more than life.”
Next day Dian wrote to Deedee Blane, with wishful overtones:
“It could be that the meetings between Watts and the MGP and ORTPN officials were only about the upcoming 60th anniversary of the founding of the park and that Watts was deliberately provoking my Africans, knowing they would tell me. Nonetheless they seem awfully worried, and I am a basket case awaiting the eviction notice at any moment. I sure wish you were both still here.”
On July 28 Watts resigned, for the last time, as field director of KRC. He wrote her a rather caustic note in which he referred to the center as “YOUR” camp and said that she could now reassume “YOUR” responsibilities for it.
He departed two days later, intending, as he told some of the staff, to enjoy a leisurely holiday. He began his vacation in Ruhengeri as the houseguest of Amy Vedder and Bill Weber.
Dian was not sorry to see him go. She wrote to Anita McClellan, “David Watts has finally left. Thank God! He always was a good field worker, BUT a real snot to have around camp.”
In a state of acute apprehension Dian descended the mountain on August 7 to see about getting her visa renewed. Although this was becoming a familiar ordeal, each time she had to go through it seemed worse than the time before.
To obtain a visa I have to have the authorization of the director of ORTPN. He at first was “unavailable,” but when I persisted, said he wouldn’t see me. Finally I was so pushy (after the third day) he saw me in the anteroom and told me in front of half his staff that the Mountain Gorilla Project would be taking over my entire camp for the sake of tourists and it would be staffed with scientists of their choosing. He would not talk further and slammed into his office.
I couldn’t believe what I heard but went to the American embassy, temporarily being run by two nice ladies. They called people at the Rwandan Foreign Affairs and elsewhere and said that if Habiyaremye refused me, the entire Western world would screech loudly. Something worked, and I finally did get my visa-but only for two months and only after a week of trying. I’m traumatized by Habiyaremye’s intended action if it is truly meant.
Any hopes Dian might have nurtured that he did not mean it were dissipated when she climbed back to camp on August 15— “with Guam pulling me most of the way—it took two and a half hours though the path was dry.” Lying on her kitchen table was an official letter from Habiyaremye:
“During a meeting I held end of June the status of our research center was redefined.
“I want KRC to become an International Research Station fully integrated with ORTPN and working in close collaboration with ORTPN and international scientific organizations [read: MGP and its parents].
“I fully realize it is important to study a few gorilla groups, but it is also urgent to start other uses in the interests of the country. A committee will soon be designated to list the priorities, and I intend to ask well-known scientific organizations [see above] to send experienced scientists to KRC. … From now on I will decide who will work at KRC and the MGP will be in charge of administrative aspects.
“No doubt you will understand and agree to my new policy.”
Dian’s response was amazingly calm. If, as she suspected, Habiyaremye’s letter was intended to “get me to hang myself,” it failed.
Pointing out that she and KRC had already hosted researchers “from America, Australia, Belgium, England, France, Japan, Kenya, Netherlands, Rwanda, Scotland, Spain, and Zaire,” she welcomed further “internationalization.” She politely pointed out that KRC’s activities were already closely coordinated with ORTPN. With regard to the committee to list priorities, “I would very much welcome the opportunity to be a part of this committee since I believe we all have a tremendous obligation to work for preservation of the Virungas’ wildlife resources. I have spent eighteen years of my life dedicated to this goal.”
Only once did she bare her teeth. “Monsieur le Directeur, does your decision to decide who will work at Karisoke mean that you, personally, are excluding me, the founder and the source of Karisoke’s continuing financial, scientific, conservation, moral, and international public support from taking part in such decisions? I hope not.
“In closing I would like to suggest that you not be further biased by expatriates who come and go in and out of Rwanda in accordance with their short-term personal goals that will never realistically contribute to Rwanda’s future.”
Although she appeared confident, this was hardly a true reflection of her state of mind. In truth, she was convinced that the ultimate battle in the long struggle to drive her off the mountain was now at hand and that the odds were heavily against her. She prepared to make a final stand. In mid-August she wrote several letters to friends, all more or less in the same vein.
“What is at stake are the habituated gorilla groups, trained African staff, and seven furnished cabins. I can’t keep the gorillas out of
their hands for tourism, but my Africans say they will quit if I am sent away. And there is such a thing as a scorched earth policy. Currently I have several large tins of kerosene and lots of matches. My men are scared, which isn’t fair since they are so good, but they say they concur if I have to burn all seven cabins and their contents. That threat may be the only way I have to save a lifetime of work.”
Whether she meant it or was bluffing, Dian made sure that the plan for “Fossey’s Last Stand” was noised about, especially in Kigali where it would be bound to reach the ears of officialdom. Over the years she had learned much about internal politics in Rwanda, and she hoped that higher powers would rein in the director of ORTPN rather than let him push her to a flaming wall.
September 11 was the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the original Albert National Park by the Belgians. Although the existing Parc National des Volcans represented only a fragment of the original, ORTPN was determined to celebrate in style.
The park director did not send me an invitation; but the current park conservateur, who is a truly nice guy and with whom I work well, sent me one together with an apology for what he felt must have been an oversight on the director’s part. I know better.
My Africans and I had worked all month to make a beautiful big display board illustrating Karisoke’s work in the park. The conservateur was thrilled with it and hung it right next to his office so everyone inspecting the new park headquarters couldn’t help noticing it, including Rwanda’s president.
It was kind of a gray, dismal, sprinkly day. The fete started late with the president’s late arrival, followed by dancing and singing, which I love, and then boring long speeches. There was a big printed program put out by the director, but nowhere was my name or Karisoke mentioned, though there was a great tribute to the Mt. Gorilla Project.