As insane as it sounds, the Ugandan wildlife ranger again calmly whispers: “If a gorilla charges at you, stand your ground.” Apparently when a 450-pound potentially limb tearing beast sprints at you in the jungle, it’s usually a “bluff” attack. A primate prank run and all bets are off.
We have just hiked through a high altitude cloud shrouded rainforest, a rugged 90 minute climb that requires our machete flourishing guides to bushwhack our final way while we stumble over volcanic rocks, dodge stinging nettle plants and biting fire ants, and scan for irate elephants or buffalo. (If need be, Caleb, our AK 47 toting protector, will harmlessly “scare-shoot” them away.) Hours earlier, trackers began following fresh dung piles and sleeping nests and now they have located our quest: the nine-member family of an endangered species, some of the last mountain gorillas on Earth.
From the very first glimpse, it is a heart-pounding, heart-melting honor. A magnificent 400-pound silverback clambers up a bamboo tree and balances on cracking branches that seem like toothpicks under his girth. Nearby is mischievous “Baby Fred,” now 8 years old and nicknamed for the dedicated field veterinarian who saved his life twice. Baby Fred goofily wrestles with his fuzzy-furred 4-year-old brother Mutagamba, playfully growling, gently cupping each other in the head, tumbling over in a roughhouse game, and sitting cross-legged to beat their chests. My ape anxiety vanishes; the hairy herbivores glance over with a look that says, ho-hum homo sapiens. Although stay tuned — we will have interaction!
Gorillas share 98 percent of our DNA, and in their awe-striking presence, it is like peering into a mirror (especially if I had been chomping 5-foot-long bamboo stalks and needed a shave). We have one allotted hour with this Nyakagezi family, the only gorillas who over years have been habituated to humans in Uganda’s 13-square-mile Mgahinga Gorilla National Park. The troop is extremely rare because instead of just one silverback —the older macho territorial guys with the silvery swath — there are five co-existing in the group.
Critically endangered, only about 900 mountain gorillas are left on the planet due to poaching (babies have even been kidnapped to sell as pets or to zoos), disease, civil warfare and habitat loss. They only live in Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, often crossing back and forth over the countries’ bordering mountain range.
Even before I trek with rangers, I feel especially connected to this gorilla family.
That’s because the night before, at Mount Gahinga Lodge where I am staying, I interview two “Gorilla Doctors” who have treated almost all the members for either respiratory illnesses or injuries from getting caught in poacher’s traps intended for small antelopes. A third Gorilla Doctor, Fred Nizeyimana, fills in details later. Without the medical care, the apes I see may not be alive today. The Africa-based Gorilla Doctors, founded and still affiliated with the University of California Davis, focus on saving the once nearly extinct species one patient at a time. Local trackers routinely check on roaming habituated apes, and if one is in distress, they contact the Gorilla Doctors, who have done every procedure from a life-saving leg amputation to cancer biopsies in the field. First, they dart the animal with a sleep-inducing anesthesia.
So when I lock eyes with Baby Fred, I know his dramatic backstory. In late 2010, “Dr. Fred” was alerted the then-infant had stepped on a wire snare that sliced into his thigh and flung him upside down hanging from a tree. His mother and the rest of the family tried to yank him down in vain but “the more the gorillas tried to pull him, the more he cried,” the Ugandan vet recalls.
Trackers cut down the tree, and vocalized loud noises to keep the agitated screaming silverbacks at bay while Dr. Fred removed the snare from the baby’s swollen leg before deadly gangrene set in.
Two months later, a poacher’s snare snapped around Baby Fred’s neck, deeply embedding in his flesh and nearly strangling him. The tricky part for the vets is darting because the gorillas — especially dominant silverback Mark — get protective when they see the equipment. Baby Fred’s mother shielded him and when she went down from the tranquilizer dart, father Mark grabbed his son and dashed into the forest.
Over a week, multiple interventions to remove the throat snare failed when the silverbacks repeatedly flanked mother and child, with Mark in the front and Mafia (christened for his cavorting around with women and thug behavior) in the rear. Baby Fred, though, was clearly in pain.
“His soft sobs brought a lot of anguish to the family and ourselves,” Dr. Fred says.
As the gorillas traveled daily for food, Baby Fred grew more lethargic. Finally, to fool the gorillas, the vets shed their recognizable Gorilla Doctor-logo clothes and disguised themselves as camera-toting tourists. Baby Fred was darted, and Dr. Fred removed the choking snare, cleaned the infected wound and administered antibiotics. Soon the infant was carried back in a jacket to his family, which had gone deeper into the woods. The gorillas “were overjoyed” and rushed over to see him.
For tourists, mountain gorilla treks are strictly controlled. Only once a day, up to eight people can watch this family for a timed one-hour. You are versed on various do’s and don’ts — no sudden moves (can be seen as threatening) and keep a distance of at least 23 feet (the big concern is spreading human germs that can be fatal to the animals).
But our closest cousins are curious. Baby Fred, now a cheeky juvenile, suddenly knuckle-walks up to a woman near me, lightly taps her in the thigh with his fist, then somersaults down a small incline. A while later, he scampers over to another surprised admirer and sprawls out on his back spread-eagle with his hand behind his head, striking a glamour pose and staring up at her like “Ain’t I cute?”
At the very end of our time, Mutagamba is grooming his mother’s back, while three strapping silverbacks occasionally grunt to each other and pound their muscle-rippling chests. “They want to fight with each other. That one is saying, ‘I’m the strongest,’’’ says our ranger Lamech.
And then, whoa! All three silverbacks charge at us, with head honcho Mark galloping in the lead. We all freeze. The ranger raises his machete and yells something in gorilla speak. Just like that, the apes stop only paces away. Lamech explains the trio was just “playing” and we were in their fun path.
What a (phew!) extraordinary hour.
Three months after I return home, I receive news about Baby Fred. Trackers found him with a gaping wound in his chest and his breathing labored. There had been a freakish confrontation between the gorillas and a herd of wild buffalo. Baby Fred was gored. At he lay dying of internal bleeding, his mother, father, brother and other family members looked on, angrily barked, and beat their chests, signs interpreted as mourning.
Gorilla Doctors, lauded for helping increase the endangered species’ population, could do nothing in this case. Dr. Fred had the emotionally trying task of performing the post-mortem exam on his namesake gorilla. “It was a tough day for me,” he says.
I have only spent 60 minutes of my life with these phenomenal creatures but I too am heartsick we have lost another one.
If you go
Must-have: A gorilla trekking permit. Only eight are given out daily to see the one family in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park; 88 permits are available to visit one of 11 habituated groups in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Best to book in advance through the Uganda Wildlife Authority, www.ugandawildlife.org or a tour company.
Permits cost $450 in low season ($600 in high) with proceeds going toward conservation efforts and the local economy. For another $15 you can hire a porter, a great way to support the community and literally get a hand; Stephen’s firm grip surely saved me from breaking an ankle.
Where to stay:
Mount Gahinga Lodge is a solar-powered eco-retreat facing the imposing Virunga volcanoes and surrounded by vast fields of corn stalks, purple-flowering Irish potatoes and barefoot children herding goats. You’ll sleep in one of nine papyrus-roofed “banda” cottages. The staff is super-attentive — at night you’ll find a hot water bottle delightfully warming your sheets. Rooms from $135 a night, double occupancy, include all meals, alcohol and a complimentary massage, www.volcanoessafaris.com.
Ask the lodge to arrange a cultural visit with the Batwa “pygmies,” the short-statured indigenous forest-dwellers displaced from their homelands when the national parks were established in 1991 to protect the gorillas. To learn about their current struggles, I hiked with a guide to remote hills where destitute Batwa families live in primitive straw huts. Later at the lodge, Batwa members demonstrated their ancient traditions of hunting-gathering and gave a singing-dancing performance in their tribal language.
Besides greeting gorillas:
Channel Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn while getting up-close with hordes of bobbing hippos and jaw-snapping crocs during a boat cruise on the Nile River to thunderous Murchison Falls, a setting for the 1951 movie “African Queen.”
There are only two places in the world to see rare tree-climbing lions — do a game drive to find the regal cats sleepily sprawled on branches of towering fig trees in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
Further stoke your primate passion by taking a guided chimpanzee trek to study our amusing vine-swinging relatives in the mahogany groves of lush Budongo Forest.
