by Evan Antin
This program is part of a bigger theme that’s made a huge impression on me all over the world: In order to successfully conserve local wildlife, the community has to be a part of the effort and benefit from participating. Any other way of going about conservation isn’t self-sustaining.
Volcanoes Park employs a team of expert trackers who keep tabs on the gorillas’ locations. This process is a totally passive stakeout and a twenty-four/seven job. Trackers maintain a respectful distance, they don’t approach the animals, and they don’t do anything to influence the gorillas’ movements. Their job is simply to report the locations while the gorillas do whatever they want to do. Guides take it from there, combining their knowledge of the animals (as most of them were previously trackers in the park), their ability to communicate (in multiple languages), their hiking strength, and their patience to bring visitors and apes together in the mountains.
If you’re a tourist, the upshot of all that organization is that if you want to see these amazing animals, you not only need to get to their mountains from wherever in the world you live; you also need to strap on your boots and hike out to find them. The place may be home to some of the most outrageous and special animal encounters on the planet, but it is definitely not a zoo. These are completely wild gorillas.
On the morning, Tim and I arrived at the park at sunrise—a little sore from a fairly intense crater lake hike the day before, but way too excited to care. There are eleven gorilla families in the mountains, and visitors go out in small groups to visit each family. Typically fewer than a hundred people a day get to have this privilege.
Each group, led by its guides, goes looking for a single family, and each family is different from the next (and they’re also always changing). The largest family had close to forty members and was, ironically, by all accounts the hardest to track. Every family has at least one male, at least one female, and a group of subadults and babies. Several families have multiple silverbacks who live cooperatively together.
Before we started moving, our guide, Timothy (pronounced “Tim-o-teh”), laid out some rules to keep us safe. I guess he wanted to be sure we heard him before we started huffing and puffing up the mountain. “When you see the gorillas,” he said, “remain calm. Don’t make any sudden movements. Don’t look them in the eye. Keep your posture low, indirect, and nonthreatening. Don’t eat. If you hear a gorilla making the low, throaty sound that’s a nonthreatening acknowledgment”—here Timothy demonstrated, and we all practiced—“you may make that same sound back. Otherwise, keep quiet.
“Oh yeah,” he added, “and don’t beat your chest like King Kong.”
Hearing that one, I couldn’t help but wonder just how many tourists who’d come before me had done this. Any? Really?
Last of all, Timothy warned us not to try to get near the gorillas. Do not approach. But if the gorillas approached us, he said, we should stay calm and still and never reach out toward them. We should also stay where we were, since moving away could spark a pursuit.
Ha. Like I would move away if I got so lucky.
The family we’d be tracking was one of the smallest at Volcanoes, with just one silverback, his mate, an infant male, and two juveniles, both girls. The male in this family was around thirty-three, and the female was the oldest actively breeding female in the area. At age forty-four, she was an über-mama.
After what seemed like an eternity of getting ready, learning the rules, and eagerly shifting from foot to foot when all I wanted to do was get started, we finally set out from the base of the mountain. Regardless of when you do this trek, it is invariably uphill, and these mountains are steep. On the day we were climbing, the terrain was also crazy slippery, thanks to heavy rain the night before. We knew it would be hot, so Tim wore shorts and I wore a tank top. Ten minutes into the hike, we were both regretting those choices. The theme of the day was gorilla tracking. But the subplot was definitely going to be stinging nettles on bare skin.
As we hiked, I kept my eyes peeled for gorillas, even though our guide seemed pretty confident that we had a couple miles to go until we would find them. Looking at the stunning landscape of steep, forested mountains, I wondered if Dian Fossey had ever walked this same path in the decades she’d lived and worked inside the perimeter of Volcanoes. Fossey contributed more to the world’s understanding of gorillas than any other human has. While she did it, though, she was in a constant struggle with area poachers who killed her beloved gorillas, both for bushmeat and so they could sell their heads, hands, and bones to international collectors and tribal medicine men who believed they had healing powers.
I was no expert on gorillas or on Fossey, but I had a growing base of experience with getting involved with animals whose existence is threatened by people. Conservationists who work in the field can get incredibly close to the subjects they’re studying—especially animals with high-level cognition like primates. I could only imagine how it must have felt, for Fossey, to study a family every day for years and then find a gorilla she’d built a bond with dead at the hands of poachers.
Just over an hour into our hike, Timothy got word from the trackers that we were near the gorilla family and they were coming toward us. We were along the edge of a steep ridge, and he told us to sit and wait. We sat in a spread-out line across a ledge and waited. Tim and I kept glancing at each other and then up and down the mountain. Where were they? Then, about twenty feet below us, we spotted a black mass moving our way. This is it! We kept watching it as it approached. A lone male, an actual silverback in the wild. I was willing that gorilla to come to our end of the line, to walk next to Tim and me, so I could see him up close and smell him and study how he moved. He was coming right toward us, and I had my camera ready. And then he veered toward the other end of our line, walked up to the people there, looked them over, and kept right on going.
As he walked away, I realized I’d been holding my breath. I don’t think I was the only one. All eight members of our group sat silently staring after the silverback as he continued on his way. It felt as if a giant, furry, silver angel had walked among us.
The mature, adult, educated part of me was thinking, That was incredible. I’m so grateful I got to see it. But the juvenile part of me was in a little different mood: Damn, I wish I’d been sitting over there!
I had wanted that engagement in the worst way, wanted the gorilla to look at me, and I had just missed it.
The guide told us that the rest of the family had gone a different way but that the whole group seemed to be heading to the same location farther up the mountain. We decided to hike a little longer in the area in case we could get lucky with another sighting.
Hiking away from the ridge, we had to cross over another steep hill, and it was taking a long time for the entire group to get through. Tim and I were the first across, so we started making our way ahead a little bit. The guide came with us, leaving his assistants to bring the rest of the group along. We were approaching the next ridge, an extremely steep drop, and getting ready to make our way over it when Timothy stopped us.
“Hang on,” he said. “He’s close.”
There was no question about who the he in that statement was, and I thought to myself, Yessssss!
Within seconds he was there. Steadily, easily covering the steep terrain on all fours, the three-hundred-pound silverback pushed toward us until he was directly in front of me—and then he stopped. He was so close I could have reached out and touched him. He was so huge, so majestic, so wild. Total beauty and total danger. With my heart slamming in my chest, I was eyeing this guy’s physique and was blown away by the sheer power of his musculature. I lift weights, I’ve been a personal trainer, and I studied anatomy extensively at veterinary school, so I have a solid understanding of body structure and physical development. The gorilla in front of me was easily one of the most freakishly strong creatures I’d ever seen. Head to toe, he was built of well-developed, symmetrical muscles. He was strong enough to effortlessly climb that mounta
in every day; to tear down banana trees with his bare hands; to lift as much as ten times his weight; and, undoubtedly, to shred me if he wanted to.
His eyes darted around, taking in me, Tim, and Timothy. I was too excited to be scared, but I was trying to stay nonthreatening. Eyes down, no sudden movements, no squaring off against the big guy. I knew that of the tourists to go up the mountain that day, Tim and I were two of the youngest and biggest males. I wondered if perhaps we were being perceived as some kind of intrusion, if maybe he didn’t want us there. I hunched my shoulders, bent my knees a little, tried to look small.
And then, after eyeing me and my friend for one very long minute, this giant ape who’s known not just for being powerful but also for being territorial, flopped down on the ground. He was maybe three feet from me. While I was still trying to process what this might mean—and wondering if I should get lower, too—the silverback eased over so that he was lying down in the scrubby grass and then rolled over onto his back.
I looked at Tim and saw the same expression that must have been on my face: eyebrows up, eyes wide, mouth gaping. The universal look of WTF is happening right now.
The gorilla is BELLY UP?!
As a veterinarian, if you want to do your job well and not get bitten every day, you learn very quickly to read a few body language cues that are nearly universal among animals. Three things that are clear signs that a creature is feeling relaxed and not threatened: (1) they’re eating; (2) they’re sleepy and relaxed; (3) they show you the belly.
I knew for sure this was not submission. After the way the silverback had rushed toward us and stopped to size us up, there was zero chance that he was intimidated. Even as I was thinking this, he took one long arm, stretched it up, and laid it across his forehead. Total relaxation. He glanced my way, and I lowered my eyes again. There’s no way to know 100 percent what an animal is thinking, but I was pretty sure this whole show was his way of letting us know we were not important enough to be considered a threat. His total comfort in his dominance was staggering.
While Tim and the guide and I stood watching in awe of the giant ape’s display, his family caught up to him. One by one they walked right past us—first the two juveniles, then the mom, carrying her baby. My emotions were all over the place. Joy, mostly. Excitement. Awe. Gratitude. The silverback lay there on the ground watching us, watching his family. When they’d passed us, he stretched, got up, and wandered off after them.
As soon as he was gone, I hustled over to the spot where he’d been and lay down in it, copying his posture, putting my hand over my head. He had just been there on that same grass. I was blown away. I had so wanted a moment, and we’d gotten that. It was like winning the lottery.
Family Affair
Volcanoes National Park limits the amount of exposure the gorillas have with humans to no more than an hour a day, and no family is observed every day of the week. The program treads a fine line in order to bring in significant funds to help promote conservation and protection for the gorillas without imposing on their families any more than necessary. The small groups of tourists who do trek out to see them tend to become ambassadors on behalf of the species—because we almost universally find the experience life-altering. On this day, the trackers had radioed our guide that the entire family was together in a clearing nearby, saying that we still had time on our hour-long clock if we wanted to observe them from a distance. With our group finally back together, we took a short walk to where the family was hanging out.
I didn’t think it would be possible to top the moment I’d just had with the silverback on the mountain, but what we were seeing there was a perfect complement to it. The family was acting like—well, a lot like a human family. The two subadult females were playing, wrestling, picking each other’s boogers, bickering, and just basically being gorilla kids. The mom sat nearby, nursing the baby and keeping an eye on her rowdy girls. The baby was adorable—big baby eyes, pudgy baby belly, a little wisp of hair on his little baby head.
But it was the dad, again, who snagged my attention and surprised me. While the mom nursed, he sat beside them, his giant hands gently grooming the baby. His face was so intent and caring. It was one of the sweetest moments I’ve seen in nature—the perfect juxtaposition of power and tenderness. This gorilla could crush my skull with just one of those hands, but he was simply hanging out, being a father, in a completely unguarded moment that I’d have climbed ten mountains to see.
Gorillas share 98 percent of our DNA, and it shows. We each have ten fingers and ten toes. We have the same musculature in our faces. We make similar expressions, we bond in similar ways, and we experience the same emotions. Seeing this gorilla be tender and affectionate and totally relaxed with his kiddos was like seeing any dad, any man, any family.
And then something shifted and this was a wildlife experience again. One of the guides made a move the silverback didn’t like, and the gorilla’s attention snapped to the small group of humans standing near the clearing. In a fraction of a second, he went from lying on his side, gently grooming his baby boy, to postured up on all fours with his head high and defiant. Those cannonball-sized deltoids, the forearms thicker than my thighs, the lats twice as wide as mine, and the glute muscles that originated halfway up his back made for a sobering sight, one that commanded deference and deep respect. In an instant, I went from holding myself back from trying to join in the family’s cuddle to holding myself back from shitting my pants.
Almost every kid thinks, My dad can beat up your dad, but this dad, he was not freaking kidding. The entire family looked up at us, and the mood of the visit turned. Everyone, almost in sync, started putting away cameras, looking down and to the side, prepping to quickly and quietly leave. We had been lucky enough to be guests at this party, but we’d worn out our welcome. The silverback was letting us know in a way only a gorilla can that it was time for us to pack up and go home. There’s a scene in The Terminator when Arnold Schwarzenegger gets into some guy’s semi-truck and confidently orders him to “Get. Out.” It was like that. Nobody had to say NOW. We all heard it loud and clear.
Hiking and sliding our way back down the mountain, Tim and I got lost in our recollections of the day (while trying to keep our footing on the steep trails). Seeing a gorilla family going about their business, doing the things that families do, had been magical. It was also a testament to all the people who have refused to let the giant apes die out. Gorilla Doctors has been providing protection and veterinary care to these animals for more than three decades. The group’s origins date back to 1984, when Dian Fossey requested help from the Colorado-based Morris Animal Foundation by saying, “There are 248 gorillas in the world and they’re all going to die.”
And then she asked if they’d send a veterinarian.
Providing veterinary care to creatures in the wild is a practice some people find controversial. After spending a lot of time in recent years seeing some of these programs up close, my own view of it is simply this: If people have been directly responsible for damage to a species or a habitat, then we have the duty to take direct responsibility for contributing to a recovery—even if that demands measures that push back against the order of the natural world. The care and protection the Volcanoes gorillas receive seem like the least humankind can do for a species we single-handedly nearly wiped off the face of the earth.
The Other Side of the Mountain
When you stand on a peak in the Virunga Mountains in Rwanda and look out, you’re gazing at the southwestern corner of Uganda and a vast expanse of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC is more than eighty times bigger than Rwanda, with about seven times as many people. But it wasn’t the view from the top of the mountain that had drawn me to the DRC, or even the fact that it is one of only three countries in the world where you can still find eastern gorillas (the third is Uganda, which also borders the Virungas). Instead, the idea for my trip was hatched when I saw a viral video of a pilot named Anthony Caere transporting an orphaned ch
impanzee named Mussa to the Lwiro Primate Rehabilitation Center, near the DRC’s eastern border. In it, the chimp sits, naps, and plays on Caere’s lap; Caere grooms him, nuzzles him, and shows him the controls. They gaze out the window together. It is the kind of captivating and heartbreaking moment that happens every day in wildlife rescue. The chimp is obviously looking for comfort and companionship from the man, which he gets—but the only reason he needs it is because some other human murdered his mother and the rest of his family.
I reposted that video and reached out to the pilot to say I was moved. I told him how much I admired his work—basically just sent a fan note. After that, Anthony and I got chatting about conservation and became friends. He put me in touch with the rehab center, and the director invited me to come out and see the place for myself.
Meeting my new pilot pal and visiting a chimp sanctuary in the DRC? I couldn’t pack my bags fast enough.
Or get my shots. I’d had all kinds of injections and oral vaccines for travel in the past—for hepatitis A, hep B, yellow fever, and typhoid, plus a full series of rabies shots. But I’d never had to get a cholera vaccine, until I learned that the DRC has 10 percent of the world’s cases and that the area I’d be traveling to is a hot spot for it. This particular vaccine came in a form I hadn’t had before—a powder you mix with water and then drink. Many countries don’t bother to confirm that visitors have had their vaccines, but when I finally made it to the border of the DRC, not only did the customs officer insist on seeing proof of a yellow fever vaccine, he also scanned my forehead with a temperature sensor to be sure I wasn’t arriving in his country sick with Ebola or anything else.
After flying to Kigali, Rwanda; connecting to Kamembe; and then riding to the Congolese border crossing, I spent ninety minutes in a truck to finally make it to the Lwiro Primate Rehabilitation Center. In contrast to the noise and chaos of the border crossing, this place, with its Belgian colonial, cottage-like buildings dating back to the 1960s and its quiet grounds, felt like an oasis. I was dead tired—but definitely not too tired to start meeting the center’s residents.