Gorilla Doctors

Category: Field Procedures, Monitoring Visits | Date: Jun 10 2008 | By: Dr. Lucy for gorilladoctors

Susa Group moving through the bamboo zone on Day 21, the start of the third week of the respiratory outbreak.

The gorillas had moved into a bamboo thicket by the time we were ready. The dense vegetation offered plenty of good hiding places for darting, but the trackers felt the place wasn’t safe enough for an intervention, especially given a 39-member group that includes five silverbacks. As they explained, the tall stalks give aggressive gorillas more confidence. We’d be safer in a clear area where the four trackers could more easily surround the vet team and scare away any challengers. We moved slowly through the bamboo, following our patient. No matter how we played it, at least one silverback, Igisha, would be nearby. He’s very likely the father of Ururabo’s baby; the three are often together.

Chief silverback Kurira leading Susa Group gorillas.

I waited for my cue, listening to Elisabeth and Jean Felix talk back and forth with the trackers—Leonard, Antoine, Fidel, and John Bosco. They asked me to hold off firing the dart until the situation improved. The chief, Kurira, seemed to be leading his group out of the bamboo and into a clearing studded with celery. The trackers hoped he would lead the gorillas out of the bamboo zone entirely, perhaps leaving Ururabo far enough behind that we could do the procedure on the edge of the clearing without his noticing. The time of day concerned me. It was already 2:00 PM, I still had to get the dart in, and we needed a few hours of daylight for Ururabo to recover from the anesthesia. I couldn’t tell from the clouds what the weather would do, but we didn’t want this baby getting wet and cold, either.

Thirty minutes later, I asked again. Our position wasn’t perfect but most of the gorillas had indeed moved off. For the most part, Ururabo was alone, with her back to us. We were downhill from her and could hear Igisha eating bamboo shoots somewhere up the hill. I stood just behind a fallen tree with Magda and Jean Felix to my right, shielding the dart gun from view of any gorillas who might approach from that side. Elisabeth and the four trackers—each ready with a long stick—stood to my left. It was time. Everyone said okay.

The dart landed in Ururabo’s left shoulder. She screamed, pulled it out, threw it to the ground, and walked away from us, up into the bamboo. Igisha charged out of the bamboo thicket, mouth open, canines showing. We’d been lucky with Nyiramurema and Umoja; neither had made a noise. Not so today. Elisabeth and the trackers raised their sticks and yelled at Igisha. It worked–he turned away instantly and headed after Ururabo. I couldn’t see where she went, but I heard her cough once ahead of us. The anesthetic (Medetomidine plus Ketamine) works within minutes. We needed to find Ururabo quickly in case she fell asleep in a bad position, one that could make it even harder for her baby to breathe. Igisha clued us in, charging when we turned toward the place where Ururabo sat with her back against several bamboo stalks, her head hanging down, the baby in her lap, eyes and mouth open. Then the silverback’s screaming resumed. People yelled to move Igisha; he screamed at us, I called to the trackers to keep trying. We had to get in there.

Drs. Lucy Spelman and Magdalena Braum with female mountain gorilla Ururabo (Susa Group) under anesthesia for treatment of her sick infant.

There was no easy way to move the mother gorilla out of her cage of bamboo. I calculated that in the time it would take to squeeze her through the tall stalks and move her to a wider, more open area. She’s big, about 90 kilos (200 pounds), and bamboo surrounded us. I decided we’d stay put and keep going. The most important thing was to get antibiotics into mother and the baby. Magda and I squeezed in with Ururabo while everyone else tried to scare off Igisha, working fast to give our patients their vital medicine. I glanced up to see the shadow of the silverback a bit farther away. We continued, repositioning Ururabo a bit so more of us could work around her. Igisha moved farther away. Magda started swabbing noses and mouths. Jean Felix knelt at an impossibly awkward angle and collected blood samples from Ururabo.

Ururabo’s baby undergoing treatment for presumptive secondary bacterial pneumonia during the Susa Group respiratory outbreak.

I checked the mother’s vital signs (heart rate 70, respiratory rate 40, oxygen saturation 100%)—all good—and then tried to assess the baby. He was alert but weak, his gums pale and his breathing labored. He rasped and wheezed at a rate of about 100 times a minute. I couldn’t even hear his heart rate well enough to count, nor did I try for very long. We could reposition him, even turn him over, but I didn’t want to cause more stress just to get a number. Meanwhile the baby’s positioning was perfect, inside his mother’s arms.

I could see daylight ahead. Once the lip biopsy of Ururabo’s herpes-like lesion was finished, we could reverse her. I glanced up, looked past Elisabeth, and saw only Antoine sitting quietly among the bamboo stalks. Igisha had left. Magda re-assessed the baby’s hydration: his skin tented. She estimated him to be at least 7.5% dehydrated. She’d already given him a syringe-full of fluids subcutaneously but wanted to give more. While she did that, I tried to get a blood sample from the baby. But the tiny veins running down his legs were just too small. To get a sample from a larger vein would mean restraining him, and that might kill him.

Ururabo anesthetized for treatment and sample collection, Day 21 Susa Group respiratory outbreak.

Just then Ururabo moved an arm. As anticipated, our anesthetic was wearing off 40 minutes after I’d given it. We quickly cleared away our gear, and I gave the mother gorilla one last injection, the reversal drug. Our team backed off and checked on her every few minutes. Twenty minutes after the reversal, Ururabo appeared well recovered, sitting up, holding her baby and grooming it.

At this point, we should have been smiling. Instead, we felt stressed. Susa Group had moved at least a kilometer away. Ururabo would have to find them on her own.

Had she been too young to survive a night apart from the group, we might have anesthetized her again and carried her to them–but only if we’d had enough light left in the day and enough people to make such a move safely. Our only option now was to follow her slowly and, by our presence, encourage her to move in the right direction if she chose the wrong one. Magda and Jean Felix left to process samples while Elisabeth and I stayed with the trackers. Part of me wanted to leave, too. I also had the sense that Ururabo might not want us around any more but the trackers preferred to stay with her for at least another hour.

Ururabo two hours after anesthesia following a Susa Group gorilla trail.

Ururabo helped by picking up a fresh gorilla trail and moving in exactly the right direction. I felt a bit energized. But she was in no rush; she stopped several times to rest, then to eat. We heard the main group squabbling over food, a welcome sound—they were within earshot! Ururabo would certainly head in their direction. But no, she wandered about, going toward them generally, but in anything but a straight line.

About an hour later, Ururabo disappeared into a stand of trees, a good place for a night nest. When the trackers tried to check her location, she charged, mouth open, teeth bared. She’d had it with us and wanted to rest. I felt the same way—exhausted. We left, planning to return the next day with two teams: one to find Ururabo, and one to check on the rest of our potential patients.

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