Last Chance to See

by Mark Carwardine

‘I don’t have measles, I don’t have TB, I don’t have hepatitis,’ he said. ‘But in the last day or so I have developed the mother and father, brother and sister, aunt and uncle of all colds. I have a really terrible cold. Is that going to be a problem?’

  Lilly was sympathetic, but emphatic.

  ‘Absolutely. I’m very sorry, Stephen, but we can’t let you get close to a chimpanzee. Because we are so similar, the diseases we have can be very contagious to them and, of course, what they have can be very contagious to us.’

  Stephen looked crestfallen.

  It was such bad luck. Impervious to a rogues’ gallery of many of the worst and most evil diseases on the planet, but scuppered by the common cold, he promised to keep his distance from all things chimp.

  I couldn’t help thinking that it should have been the other way round – I should have had the cold instead. Stephen really wanted to spend a couple of days in the company of chimps, but I didn’t. To be perfectly honest, I had mixed feelings about the visit because I’ve never been able to get as excited about chimps as I do about almost all other animals.

  I think I know why. It’s because they are so similar to us.

  Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I don’t like people. Some of my best friends are people. It’s just that chimpanzees share too many of our more unpleasant characteristics. They gang up on one another, indulge in office politics, beat up and bully weaker individuals, lie, gossip and bear grudges. They even take part in tribal warfare.

  Ngamba’s introductory ‘Visitor Safety Information’ did not encourage me to change my opinion: ‘In the event of any chimpanzee escaping,’ it warned, ‘everyone on the island should move to a designated area near the lake … and if the chimpanzee approaches you, enter the water.’ Then it went on to say: ‘Some of our chimpanzees throw stones … the effect of people scattering when a stone is thrown increases the stone-thrower’s confidence.’

  Part of the problem is that I was once in a forest surrounded by a troop of chimpanzees while they were having an argument. It was incredibly intimidating. They were fighting, shouting, screaming and crashing through the undergrowth all around me. They are huge animals – an adult male has several times the upper body strength of a man – and have been known to attack people.

  Mark learning to like chimps.

  Chimps aren’t all bad, of course. They have long-lasting friendships, remember favours, enjoy being tickled (they share the same ticklish parts of the body as we do – like under the armpits), show incredible compassion and kindness, and mourn the death of family members. They even seem to appreciate natural beauty (they’ve been known to stare in admiration at a fine-looking sunset) and show empathy towards other animals in trouble.

  And, of course, it’s impossible not to admire their ability to surprise and impress us with their countless skills – not to mention their intelligence (if that’s the right word – it’s a bit patronising of us to presume to judge their intelligence, as if our own is any kind of standard by which to measure).

  Imagine if every animal in the world had its own survival instruction book. Impalas, warthogs and fish eagles would have simple pamphlets of no more than a few pages each. But the chimp instruction book would be a veritable tome, equivalent to several volumes the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. There is so much to being a chimp that they don’t just learn by trial and error – they have proper lessons in which they are actively taught by their mothers and other experienced members of the troop. Their tutors are incredibly tolerant, waiting patiently as their students make mistakes and gradually, day by day, learn the tasks in hand.

  It’s so hard not to be anthropomorphic when talking about chimps.

  It takes a youngster nearly a decade to acquire most of the skills, knowledge and competence to be a fully qualified, professional chimpanzee. Some skills, such as cooperative hunting or opening certain types of nut, can take several decades to be taught properly.

  Just think about everything they need to learn. They use twigs to fish termites out of their mounds; they use rocks as missiles (throwing them at potential predators, or people they don’t like) and branches as clubs; they make sponges to soak up water from inaccessible tree holes; they open nuts with a Heath-Robinson hammer and anvil; and they make comfortable cushions with large leaves.

  In recent years, in Senegal, there have been reports of them using sharp sticks as spears, especially to catch bushbabies.

  Actually, I’ve just realised that one reason I have a completely irrational bias against chimpanzees is because they kill other mammals for food. I’m not a vegetarian myself, so I’m being astonishingly hypocritical, but why can’t they be like bonobos and eat mainly fruit? Instead, they hunt everything from flying squirrels to baboons. I think it’s a kind of unreconstructed species prejudice: it’s acceptable for lions and tigers to kill other animals, because they are predators and they need to do it to survive. But a chimp is one of us. I haven’t thought this preposterous idea through properly – but it’s clearly been in my sub-conscious for years.

  It’s so hard not to be anthropomorphic. I’ll never forget reading about an observation Jane Goodall made during her study of the famous chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, in Tanzania. She noticed that young chimps with very affectionate and supportive mothers tend to grow up as calm and confident individuals. But those raised by careless and stressed mothers are more likely to develop a hyperactive, impatient and nervous character. How human is that?

  Ngamba Island is divided into two unequal parts. A tiny portion of its 40 hectares (100 acres) is reserved for conservationists. The other 98 per cent is wild and belongs to the chimps. It’s all natural rainforest and there is plenty of room to roam.

  Lilly took us to meet some of the rescued orphans. We had a tin bucket full of food and threw bananas and carrots to the chimps on the other side of the electric fence.

  ‘Hello!’ said Stephen, as I threw a carrot to a huge male chimpanzee.

  ‘Oooooh-uuh, ooooh-uuh, ho-uh, ho-uh, ha-uh, ha-uh, ha-ha-ha-ha!’ said the chimp.

  The carrot fell a couple of metres short of the fence. As we watched, the chimp picked up a stick, poked it through the wire, and dragged the carrot to within arm’s reach.

  ‘Our own ancestors must have started off doing things like that,’ said Stephen, hugely impressed. ‘We just got a little bit further. They haven’t invented mobile phones yet, have they? Or broadband. But they’re pretty close. Clever thing!’

  Several other chimps were waving their arms in the air.

  ‘They’ve got their hands up,’ laughed Stephen. ‘They’re like school children, who know the answer, aren’t they? Please Sir! Sir! Over here! Me! Me, Sir!’

  ‘Do you know all their names?’ I asked Lilly.

  She did, and started introducing us to them as if they were old friends.

  ‘That’s Bahati, over by the tree, and there’s Baluku chasing Nakku in the bushes behind.’

  She told us about some of the 45 orphans in her care. More than half of them came from the DRC, where they had been rescued from traders working in the live pet trade. They looked healthy and happy, with plenty of space, good food (they even had porridge for dinner) and a choice of sleeping platforms and hammocks.

  There had, though, been one unsatisfied customer. A male called Sunday once made a bid for freedom by stealing a fishing boat (the fisherman was still in it – he leapt into the water). The daring chimp had obviously been planning and researching his escape for some time because, as he floated off into the sunset, he tried to pull the cord to start the engine. He was returned to the island none the worse for wear and has lived there, without incident, ever since.

  The misty, mountainous jungle over Stephen’s shoulder while having breakfast in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

  The next day we met Afrika and Mac, two of the youngest chimps on Ngamba. Afrika’s mother had been killed for bushmeat. She was just a few months old when she was found, lying on he
r side and squashed into a tiny wooden cage. Mac had a similar story. But they had spent the past year being rehabilitated – learning a little bit about how to be chimps – and were ready to begin their return to the wild.

  We happened to be there on the day they were being introduced to some of the older members of the Ngamba community.

  Stephen watched from a safe distance as we took the two orphans into the chimp side of the island.

  ‘Good luck, non-cold people,’ he called from the other side of the fence.

  I was carrying Afrika, who was climbing all over my head and shoulders, nibbling my thumb, swinging from my arms and playing like a human toddler.

  ‘You lucky beggar,’ said Stephen.

  Lilly looked worried.

  ‘You never know what’s going to happen,’ she said. ‘This is the most nerve-wracking part of the whole rehabilitation process. Sometimes the adults reject the babies and even hurt them. One nearly killed a baby just like Afrika and Mac, by banging the poor thing against the ground.’

  The introduction was organised like a military operation. Pasa and Ikuru, two adult chimps, were ready and waiting in a separate enclosure on the other side of a trap door. Pacing and hooting, they were getting impatient.

  Lilly gently put Mac down onto the ground and told me to do the same with Afrika. The two young chimps looked nervous and clung to our legs.

  The trap door opened and Pasa and Ikuru came racing towards us.

  We held our breath.

  The enormous adults paused in front of the two wide-eyed youngsters and looked them up and down. Gently, they put their arms on their shoulders and gave them huge hugs. The four animals rolled around together, held hands, and then hugged again.

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Lilly, who was almost in tears. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. We couldn’t have hoped for more.’

  I was trying to be strong, but could feel the tears welling.

  ‘For a man who claims not to like chimps, you seem to have had a change of heart,’ called Stephen, in a wavering voice.

  I had.

  Every morning in this corner of Africa starts with popping a malaria tablet. I take mine religiously, without fail. I’m a little paranoid, because I nearly died from the disease many years ago (it would be tedious to relate all the details, but not half as tedious as it was to suffer them at the time).

  Malaria is actually quite interesting (an understatement for the millions of people who die from it every year). It is transmitted via the saliva of female – never male – mosquitoes. Most of the time they feed on nectar. But nectar doesn’t contain enough protein for them to produce and lay eggs, so, once in a while, after dark, they go out and look for a good blood meal to build up their strength. Personally, I wouldn’t begrudge them a tiny drop of blood to help them lay a few eggs. But there is a catch, because their saliva contains a little microbe, called Plasmodium, which wheedles its way into your bloodstream – and that is what makes you decidedly ill.

  ‘Taken your Malarone?’ asked Stephen, as he sat down opposite me for breakfast. We had an unspoken agreement to remind one another every day.

  ‘Yep. You?’

  ‘I couldn’t find my Malarone, so I’ve taken Toblerone instead.’

  We were in the open-air dining room of Bukima Lodge, in the middle of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the southwestern corner of Uganda. Looking over Stephen’s shoulder, I could see a vast expanse of misty, mountainous jungle stretching out below us.

  ‘Did you sleep okay?’ asked Stephen.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ I replied. ‘I sleep much better listening to the sounds of the African night than I do at home.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Stephen. ‘The jungle wildlife sounded like a thousand people testing their mobile ringtones: brrr-brrr, ooh-ooh, rattle-rattle, bing-bing, ting-tong, dat-dat. And goodness knows what was making a sing-sing-dock-dock-ping-ping sound right outside my bedroom window.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I sympathised. ‘Why don’t you …’

  ‘And what the hell is that?’ he interrupted.

  A bird – I never found out what it was – had been screaming its incessant metallic bleep-bleep call since before Stephen had sat down.

  ‘Surely the bloody thing must have charged by now,’ he said, a little grumpily.

  ‘Ah well. It’ll be worth it when we get into the forest.’

  ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘the whole point of an impenetrable forest is that it’s impenetrable? And yet we are going to penetrate it.’

  I laughed.

  ‘How far do you think we’ll have to walk to find them?’

  ‘It depends which family we are allotted. It could be as little as an hour’s trek away, if we’re really lucky, or up to eleven hours if we’re not.’

  On the gorilla trek – before Mark and Stephen realised how much sweating and panting, crawling and clambering along slippery mountain tracks there was still to come.

  ‘Eleven hours? Eleven hours? Are you kidding? Eleven hours! Oh my God.’

  We had come to a tiny island of 331 square kilometres (128 square miles) of equatorial rainforest, surrounded by a sea of banana and tea plantations, close to the border with the DRC.

  Bwindi is home to nearly half of the world’s remaining 700–750 mountain gorillas. The other half live in the Virunga Volcanoes, which straddle the borders of the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, just 25 kilometres (15.5 miles) to the south.

  Douglas and I visited them in The Country Formerly Known as Zaire. My main memory of that particular encounter was our larger-than-average gorilla-watching kit. I can’t remember exactly why, but it consisted of the basic stuff – jeans, T-shirt, waterproofs and a load of cameras – plus an immense store of dirty laundry, a suit and shoes for Douglas to meet his French publisher in Paris, a dozen computer magazines, a thesaurus, half the collected works of Dickens and a large wooden model of a Komodo dragon. It all belonged to Douglas, of course.

  There were no other gorilla-watching tourists in Zaire at the time. There aren’t many there now, either. Unhappily, the gorillas have been caught in a vortex of human conflict and misery and are forced to share their home with a motley collection of rebels from both the DRC and Rwanda.

  They made headline news in July 2007, when seven of the 12-member Rugendo family were killed in cold blood. Images of grieving villagers carrying Senkwekwe, a 227-kilogram (500-pound) silverback gorilla, on a makeshift bamboo stretcher were seen around the world.

  The gorillas had not been killed by poachers, which would have been bad enough, but were executed – some even shot in the back of the head. Poachers would have removed the heads and hands to sell as souvenirs to tourists (there was once a grisly tourist trade in poached gorilla heads and hands – and a small number of uninformed or uncaring tourists still buy such gruesome artefacts) and they would have kidnapped the infants. But the bodies were just left where they fell.

  There was no shortage of suspects. The gorillas share the DRC portion of the Virunga Volcanoes with tens of thousands of heavily armed soldiers engaged in a three-way guerrilla war between two rival militias and the Congolese army. It’s also home to poachers and hordes of illegal charcoal producers, and it is bordered by subsistence farmers and vast refugee camps overflowing with families fleeing the bloodshed. Most likely, the killings were a warning to local conservationists trying to prevent the commercial destruction of the rainforest by charcoal-makers, who chop down the park’s trees.

  But if the gorillas are hugely vulnerable, so are the rangers trying to protect them. They are exposed to just as many dangers, if not more, as they try to continue their work no matter how much rebel activity there is in the region. Several hundred gorilla rangers have been killed in the line of duty in recent years.

  Soon after the Rugendo executions, many of the rangers were forcibly ejected from the park by the notorious rebel leader, Laurent Nkunda. The 53 rangers suddenly found themselves without food or water, dodging rebel bullets in a war zone, trying to mak
e their way on foot to safety.

  Nkunda took control of the region during an offensive to seize strategic land near the Ugandan border. The tall, slender ethnic Tutsi, leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the People, recognised that gorillas sometimes draw more global attention than people. He was actually quoted as saying: ‘For us, the gorillas are worth more than diamonds.’ In between waging war against the Congolese army and Hutu militias, the 41-year-old warlord actually organised tours – a kind of guerrilla’s gorilla-watching – for journalists and adrenalin-seeking tourists. He was eventually captured, early in 2009, during a joint operation by the Congolese and Rwandan armies.

  Even Bwindi, where Stephen and I went to see the gorillas, has had its fair share of troubles. A group of more than a hundred machete-wielding rebels killed eight tourists and two tour guides while on a gorilla-watching holiday there in March 1999. It was a bid by Rwandan Hutus to weaken US and British support for the new Rwandan government. The murders dealt a crippling blow to Uganda’s tourist industry, particularly in Bwindi, although it recovered surprisingly quickly (so many people really want to see gorillas that they’re prepared to overlook levels of security that would scare away ‘normal’ tourists in an instant).

  A friend of mine was staying at the lodge on the day of the rebel attack. By pure chance, he happened to wake up early and left before the violence erupted. He only heard about it later in the day. It reminds me of the film Sliding Doors – how one chance event can affect the rest of your life.

  After breakfast, Stephen and I wandered down to join the gathering crowd of gorilla-watchers on the lawns near the park headquarters, for a detailed briefing.

  ‘We recommend you take a walking stick,’ the ranger told us. ‘Don’t touch the gorillas,’ he continued. ‘And if you need a poo, tell a ranger and he will close shop after you’ve finished.’ That was all fine. But when he said ‘If you can’t manage the trek you can be carried up the mountain on a stretcher’ I glanced over at Stephen and we both started to giggle. It was terribly unprofessional of us and we got some surly glances from a well-behaved group of German tourists. The ranger carried on regardless: ‘If it’s all too much, I suggest you go home and get fit and then come back again.’ At that point, we lost it altogether and had to turn away.