SAVING GABON’s ORPHAN GORILLAS

[Anonymous]

Saving Gabon’s orphan gorillas
At
the moment Gabon, in West Africa, is reliant on oil for its income. But
with supplies due to run out by 2020, President Omar Bongo is keen to
turn some of the virgin equatorial forest – full of elephants, chimps,
gorillas, mandrills, hippos and leopards – into national parks for
tourists.It is a bit disconcerting to travel as far as Gabon to do an
interview, only to find that your subject does not much like
talking.Liz Pearson is director of a pioneering gorilla reintroduction
project on the Congo border.When she meets me at Franceville Airport,
she is monosyllabic, albeit with a shy smile. I notice bites and
scratches on her bare arms. Later she will say that after eight years
living cloistered with gorillas in the forest, she has “lost the habit
of small talk”. When I get there the next day, I understand why.That
evening, in town over a beer, she becomes more talkative. The air
smells of roasting meat. “It is hard to find a restaurant here that
does not serve bushmeat,” she says.Next-door is offering crocodile,
monkey and antelope; it is a clear sign that despite the fact that
hunting is seriously endangering Gabon’s wildlife, bushmeat remains the
meal of choice.

Gorilla reserve
It
was the late John Aspinall, the eccentric British millionaire who
founded two private zoos in Kent, who had the vision for the gorilla
reserve. “I flew over the site for an hour and was beguiled by its
beauty,” he said. “I saw no human habitation. I knew it was ideal for a
sanctuary.”Getting to camp involves a bone-shaking five-hour journey in
a four-wheel-drive vehicle across savannah to the River Mpassa, where
we unload supplies into a motorised canoe to chug upstream for three
hours.Thick vines line the banks; under the water, snout-nosed
crocodiles lurk; this is a journey reminiscent of The African Queen. An
hour in, just as it did for Bogart and Hepburn, lightning cracks,
thunder rumbles and we sit hunched in oilskins as a tropical storm
beats down.”We are home,” says Liz as we trudge up a muddy track.
“Home” is a hut with a gas-powered freezer, a satellite phone and
laptops on which data from her and a team of trackers is logged.As dusk
falls, the tropical night strikes up its orchestrated concert: the
piped squeaks of bats, the maracas buzz of cicadas, the soprano whoops
of bushbabies. It is an astonishingly soothing blanket of primeval
sound.

Establishing an attachment
Many
started life as bushmeat orphans. One was just a month old and weighed
as little as a bag of sugar. Another’s mother was caught in a snare,
her foot left behind. “She had chewed it off,” Liz says. “The baby was
clinging to the dead body.”Kongo was rescued from a cage and had
machete scars. She will never forget his cry when he arrived. “It was a
heart-rendingly hollow call, like he was glad to see the forest again,”
she says.For rehabilitation to work, establishing an attachment is
crucial. “Gorillas are very sensitive,” Liz tells me. “If you do not
develop a bond, they do not eat. The lights go out in their eyes.”A
second group of gorillas arrived here in 2002 from Aspinall’s Howletts
Zoo. It is the first time reintroduction has been attempted with
captivity-born young and although not psychologically harmed like the
others, these zoo babies presented a different challenge.Reared in
cages, they were scared when they saw the forest. They did not like its
sounds; they panicked at the sight of a beetle. And there was worse to
come.Snakes, leopards and on one occasion, Liz and her youngsters
stumbled on an elephant which trumpeted and charged. The gorillas leapt
onto her, clinging out of fear, so she could not move. Slowly Liz
backed away. Afterwards, she examined the tracks and realised there had
been an elephant calf too. That is why the mother was so aggressive.
She was being protective, just as Liz was.

‘Speaking’ their language
These
young gorillas are self-sufficient now but while they may have flown
the nest they cannot contain their joy when they see Liz in the forest.
The older ones want her to play and show it by biting and scratching.
She is less thick-skinned so play hurts. The youngest climb on her
lap.Gorillas thump their chests and cough to show they are unhappy. Liz
uses imitative sounds to communicate with them. She knows all the
noises, she says. But she never wants to “say” too much in case she is
speaking the wrong words.She uses body language instead. “If I sit
hunched up,” she says, “they will not approach me but if I am open,
they do.”What does the future hold for these gorillas? The
international primatologists following the project are hoping they will
mate and form new family units.”It is a bit of a Lord of the Flies
experiment,” Liz admits. “These gorillas have grown up without adult
gorilla parenting. There is the possibility they will see each other as
just brothers and sisters and not as mating partners.”But at least now
the gorillas are living independently in their new habitat. “They are
going through the adolescent phase,” Liz says. “They have sugar rushes
from overdosing on fruit – they are a real handful.”

[Author]

March 1, 2007 at 10:56 AM