Dian Fossey’s Mountain Gorillas

Through fog and thick bush, a group of mountain gorillas appears.  The giant silverback male beats his chest in a gesture of intimidation before settling into the ground to munch on leaves.  A baby tentatively descends a tree, then stares, with deep emotion, into my eyes…

And then, I wake up.  I am surrounded by misty volcanoes and the air is as crisp as a Canadian fall day.  I am close to the gorillas – for they are at the base of the volcanoes a few kilometers away – but not that close.

Almost every tourist to Rwanda comes with one goal in mind – to have a close encounter with the country’s infamous mountain gorillas.  Last year, over 25,000 foreign tourists trekked in the Volcanoes National Park to see one of the dozen or so gorilla groups up-close.

And each of them paid $750US.

***

It wasn’t always possible to visit the mountain gorillas of the Virungas.  They were once so endangered that all believed it was inevitable that they would soon disappear from the face of the earth.

Enter Dian Fossey.

Though she was trained as an occupational therapist, Fossey’s love of animals, stubbornness, and persuasive skills led Richard Leaky to invite her to Central Africa to study the few remaining mountain gorillas.  They’d been pushed further and further up the mountains by poaching and human encroachment, thereby developing the fur and larger size than their lowland cousins.For the next eighteen years, Fossey rarely left the dark and damp Virunga Mountains.  She developed an incredible kinship with the gorillas she studied, approaching them more closely than anyone ever had, and even developing some of their physical habits and vocalizations in order to be seen as “just another gorilla.”

Snapshot from the Nat Geo article: Fossey approaching her gorillas to within a few feet.

Snapshot from the Nat Geo article: Fossey cuddling and playing with Coco and Pucker Puss, the two infant gorillas she agreed to nurse back to health before they were sent off to international zoos.

Gorillas in the Mistportrays Dian Fossey as a bit of an eccentric woman.  It is true that she donned a Halloween mask to frighten poachers away from her gorilla groups, and it is true that she was incredibly difficult to work for and that she had trouble keeping local staff. But it is also true that without her dedication, the mountain gorilla would probably now be extinct.

In January 1970, a National Geographic photographer captured Fossey cuddling and playing with two baby gorillas that she had agreed to nurse back to health before they were taken away by zoo collectors.  Fossey wrote a 20-page article for the magazine about her studies (I’m holding the original Nat Geo issue in my hands right now – Bruno is a die-hard Fossey-fan), and woke the world up to the gentility and plight of these giant beasts.  Her subsequent fame led to greater conservation efforts, and ultimately mass gorilla tourism.

***

We arrived in Kinigi, the town outside the headquarters for the Volcanoes National Park, in the middle of a massive celebration – The Gorilla-Naming Ceremony.  Theoretically, this yearly ceremony is conducted to name all the baby gorillas born in the previous year.  The prime minister delivers a speech, names are given, and that’s that.

What we saw was a massive party – a giant stage with booming speakers, thousands of people on a large grass field eating and laughing and drinking.  When the revelers finally left, there were so many plastic cups and paper plates strewn upon the grass that the field looked like a landfill site.  I couldn’t help but think about the gorillas.  They were only a few kilometers away, and could undoubtedly hear the thumping of the bass.  I doubt this was what Dian Fossey had in mind when she set out to save them.

Ironically, Dian Fossey was against mass tourism as a method of saving her precious gorillas.  Because they are such close relatives to humans, gorillas are very susceptible to a variety of human diseases.  Tourists bring flu and colds, which can actually kill a gorilla.  Fossey protected her gorillas like a mother protects her newborn child.

That hasn’t stopped the Rwandan government from using Fossey’s gorillas to make major bucks.

***

I think by now, dear reader, you are probably fairly sure that I didn’t trek out for a one-hour visit with the gorillas I’ve been talking about for the past 600 words.  I don’t think I could have kept such an awe-inspiring experience secret from you for so long, right?

As lifestyle travelers rather than tourists, forking over $1500US – a sum that carries us through at least a month of travel – for us to spend an hour with the gorillas is not something we can even consider.  One “drawback” of lifestyle travel is that, sometimes, you have to forego the expensive tourist experiences that everyone around you seems to be indulging in.

I admit that, for a moment, I was jealous of the gorilla-trekkers coming and going at our lodge.  As an animal-lover, I would love nothing more than to be within reach of a gorilla.  In my daydreams, I’ve cuddled with a baby gorilla at night in his leafy bed, been kissed on the cheek by the leathery lips of an old female, and been accepted by the dominant silverback of the group.  I guess in my daydreams I’ve been Dian Fossey.

In truth, though, I think I’m more jealous of Bruno than I am of the one-hour-gorilla-trekkers.  Some eighteen years ago, Bruno spent over a month with BaAka pygmies in Central African Republic.  They trekked for over two weeks, following tracks and locating nests, before Bruno spotted his first gorillas.  The dominant male reached out and touched Bruno’s shoulder before pushing over his pygmy guide.

In comparison, modern-day gorilla trekking is pretty tame.  My friends from Kampala recently went to see the mountain gorillas of Uganda, and I heard their stories and saw their pictures.  The fact that there were more local guides and trackers than tourists, the fact that they were limited to a single hour with the gorillas, the fact that you have to stay at least seven meters away from the gorillas at all times, and the fact that anyone who has the money can see the gorillas – all that takes away from the satisfaction of the experience.The fact that I just read an angry article about a woman whose gorilla-trekking experience was marred by a rude woman with an Ipad assures me my money is better left in my pocket.

***

Since we weren’t going to be gorilla-trekking, we decided to try to feel as close to the gorillas as possible.  We visited Rosamond Carr’s farm, where Dian Fossey often stayed when recuperating from the many colds she had as a result of living on those misty mountains.  Several scenes from the film, Gorillas in the Mist, were filmed here – one in the bright flower garden behind Carr’s ivy-walled home, and one inside the spare bedroom.

We came for the Fossey-connection, but it turns out that Madame Carr was a pretty interesting woman herself.  She’d been living on this farm – growing flowers and pyrethrum, a natural insecticide – for decades before the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.  When she returned from the U.S. later that year, she opened up a children’s home, called Imbabazi (“care of a mother” in Kinyarwanda) for the newly-orphaned children in the area.  She passed away in 2006, and was buried in the vast gardens near her house, but the orphanage continued to run under her foundation until last year.  Now that the children are all grown up, the Imbabazi Foundation plans to open up a preschool and to teach adults in the region diversified farming.

From our campsite beside Carr’s carefully tended garden, we spotted three distant volcanoes for the first time.  One glowed red in the dark that night.  Dian Fossey’s gorillas were beckoning us closer.

The morning after the loud Gorilla-Naming Ceremony in Kinigi, we walked to the headquarters of the park.  At least eighty tourists were packed into safari cars ready to take them out to the various starting points for their gorilla treks.  That’s $60,000 in a single day!

Since this is Africa, Bruno and I were a bit skeptical as to where this money goes.  We scoured fact sheets and graphs posted on the bulletin boards outside the headquarters in vain before approaching a park ranger with our questions.

“Some of the money goes to paying the trackers – two to each group – and an on-call veterinarian.  The trackers follow the groups 24/7, not only to locate them for the tourists, but to protect them from poachers.  The vet is there, among other things, to cure them of human illnesses.”

On the bulletin board I had read that if someone is sick, they should not go gorilla-trekking.  With a doctor’s note, they can get a full refund on their gorilla pass.  But who, really, is likely to give up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity over a cold?

“Most of the money goes toward conservation efforts within the park.  And we think we’re doing a pretty good job – there are now 880 mountain gorillas, and over half of them live in the Virunga Mountains!”

Indeed, the numbers were more than neither Bruno nor I expected, and we were slightly encouraged.

Maybe Dian Fossey was wrong about gorilla tourism?

***

I’m happy we walked in the footsteps of Dian Fossey.  Waking up every morning at the base of gorgeous volcanoes, and feeling in proximity of her gentle mountain gorillas was special.  My breath was taken away each morning as I stared at the outline of a Mordor-esque volcano, as it was taken away when we were surrounded by the colors of Rosamond Carr’s farm.

That’s when I realized that the “downside” of lifestyle travel – not being able to gorilla trek – wasn’t a downside at all.  It had forced us to dig deeper and to visit the region in another way.  I may not have gotten to stare into the eyes of a mountain gorilla, but I felt as connected to their past, present, and future as if I had.

I recommend reading the online version of Dian Fossey’s 1970 National Geographic article, Making Friends with Mountain Gorillas.  For more facts on mountain gorillas, and to learn how you can help protect them, click here.