Gorilla Doctors

Category: About MGVP, Inc., Orphaned Mountain Gorillas | Date: Jun 30 2008 | By: Dr. Lucy for gorilladoctors

The camera zoomed in on Ndeze as she fell from a tree branch and hit the ground with a thud. Several people in the auditorium gasped, including me. Here I was, worrying about Ndeze as if I didn’t know her! On the contrary, I’d been right there when she was filmed for National Geographic’s “Gorilla Murders.”

Ndeze, an orphaned female mountain gorilla growing up in Goma, DRC, May 2008

I felt as if I’d been moved to another planet and asked to observe my job from the viewpoint of a total stranger. The movie is so intense that I found myself reacting emotionally before my rational brain could remind me of the facts. I know full well that infant mountain gorillas, orphaned or not, love to play the climb-up-high-and- let-go game, and that this is one of Ndeze’s favorites.

Ndeze playing the climb-up-high-and-let-go-game

A crowd of invited guests had gathered to watch the screening in downtown Washington, D.C., and we were nearing the end of the film. The narrator had just introduced Ndeze and Ndakasi as victims of the rampant illegal charcoal trade in DR Congo. The film shapes a story from the available facts: their mothers were shot and killed in the Virunga National Park by corrupt park staff who simply wanted to assert their own power.

Ndeze (left) and Ndakasi (right) playing.

The playful orphans lightened the movie at just the right time. Though they symbolize all that is wrong with conservation in Congo, they also represent hope. If changes are made to protect the park, the orphans might one day return to their forest home. But from my perspective at MGVP, this is anything but a sure thing, regardless of what happens to the park itself. We’ll need to help care for these orphans until they reach breeding age, six to eight years from now, before any reintroduction is possible.

After her fall from the tree, Ndeze rolled on her side, jumped up, and resumed her play, no harm done. She looked bigger than life on the huge high-def movie screen. I opened my eyes wide, trying to take in the entire image at once. Mick (Michael Davies, the film’s field producer) had told me to grab a good seat. Instead, I’d lingered too long in the front hall looking at a photo essay on China and ended up sitting way too close to the screen for comfort.

Ndakasi plays with a plastic chair.

The footage of the orphans included Ndakasi, too. It captures her making a toy out of the digital scale. Instead of sitting in the plastic tray so we could get a weight, she stood up, tipped it off the base, tumbled to the ground, and grasped at the tray as it flipped into the air. Andre (Bauma) and Eddy (Dr. Kambale) appear during this segment of the film, joining the orphans at play. The narrator referred to them as park rangers rather than as vet tech and vet respectively, but no matter—the story was already complicated enough.

Dr. Eddy Kambale is playing with and examining Ndeze.

Though I know the sequence of events well—they’ve all taken place since I began working for MGVP—the film included footage of something I’d never seen before: the rebel soldiers sitting next to wild mountain gorillas. The rebels grin and smirk for the camera. They put their faces just inches from the gorillas’, who, for all their intelligence, apparently cannot distinguish good from bad gun-toting people. Or if they do know the difference, they don’t show it.

ICCN ranger and veterinary technician Andre Bauma gives Ndakasi her bottle.

There was a panel discussion after the screening, led by Geographic’s Boyd Matson (who later invited me to be on his radio show in the fall to talk about my new book!). The panelists included photographer Brent Stirton, African Conservation Fund’s Emmanuel de Merode—who just left WildifeDirect to focus his efforts on the Virunga Park—and one of the ICCN rangers, Godefroid Wambale. Their comments and the questions from the audience focused largely on one theme: the human tragedy in Congo.

Emmanuel said it best, pointing out that we ought to feel ashamed that the world took notice of the gorilla slaughter when Brent’s photo made the cover of Newsweek almost a year ago, but not the Congo war. Millions of people have died and many continue to suffer as a result of the rebel fighting and despite a huge UN presence. What’s worse, as the film shows, soldiers from the supposedly good side, the Congolese government and the UN, have also been involved in illegal charcoal trade.

Andre Bauma, with Ndeze and Ndakasi

The evening ended with a lively reception. Since the Magazine and Channel are separate divisions at National Geographic, this event was special: each had timed their stories to air simultaneously. I enjoyed meeting new people with an interest in gorillas. Several asked if I’d come all this way for the screening. No, I explained, but I’d had good timing, having planned months ago to be here for the publication of The Rhino with Glue-on Shoes. One of the 28 true stories in the book is about an injured mountain gorilla, written by my predecessors at MGVP, Chris Whittier and Felicia Nutter.

One person, referring to the film, said, “How awful that it could take just one disease to wipe out the world’s mountain gorillas.”–a point made by the film’s narrator. I shook my head again, thinking back to the upsetting scene in which the rebel soldiers made fun of the gorillas. Our project runs an annual health screening program for park rangers in both Rwanda and Congo. But of course those weren’t rangers sitting next to the gorillas.

Ndakasi, orphaned mountain gorilla female growing up in Goma, DRC

Who knows what diseases the soldiers carry? Except for an emergency intervention to recover the infant gorillas after the massacre, none of us has been inside the park in recent months, not even our Congolese field vets, Eddy and Jacques (Dr. Iyanya.) The narrator made the point that it will take only one epidemic of disease to wipe out the gorillas. Experience has taught me that the health of the mountain gorillas is inextricably linked to human health. After the film airs, many more people will know this, too.

~Dr. Lucy Spelman

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