Expedition to Congo's RGPU reserve rainforest in search of unhabituated Grauer's gorillas

In the last decade, the Fossey Fund has worked alongside local Congolese leaders to establish nine nature reserves that encompasses over 7,000 square miles of landscape.  But, because the Grauer’s range covers some 26,000 square miles (an area more than twice the size of the entire country of Rwanda), there is still much work to be done to ensure the conservation of this gorilla subspecies. The Fund plans to implement an “active conservation” methodology in one reserve after another, and slowly expand as resources allow.

Expeditions to the reserves are being completed now. Most recently, Urbain Ngobobo, Fossey Fund DRC Program Manager and Jessica Burbridge, Field Communications Officer, flew from Goma to the RGPU, the Punia Gorilla Reserve, via a bush plane through Kasese, DRC. The reserve is as remote as you can imagine. There are no dirt roads that connect the villages; they are only accessible by motorbike, through a network of narrow jungle paths that are at best extremely muddy and at worst, filled with organic obstacles and downright dangerous. The 4 hour, 32 kilometer motorbike ride from the airstrip through the rainforest led the team through mammoth clusters of bamboo, reaching 75 feet or higher, across slippery logs spanning rushing rivers and through many mud and thatch hut villages.
The primary objective of this particular trip was to determine the Grauer’s gorilla’s presence in the region. Throughout the 2 days, 30 kilometers and 17 hours of trekking through the rainforest, the team of nine UGADEC trackers and DFGFI staff discovered many gorilla nests, of varying age and decomposition. The team moved deeper into the forest, up and down countless mountains and ravines, and various other presence-indicators made an appearance - old feeding sites, piles of dung and finally, the characteristic knuckle print in the mud that led right to a group. The Grauer’s gorillas in this area are unhabituated though, and fled at the first sound of the team’s approach.

The two-day forest expedition also reinforced another vital element to the new program: anti-poaching. The first 2-3 kilometers into the trek, the team encountered many villagers toting wood, water and food out of the forest. Just beyond that zone however, the first snare was discovered, which was promptly destroyed. Two additional bamboo and wire snares and a trap designed to break the leg of it’s victim were found the first day. With a recent private donation for $200,000 to develop an anti-poaching program in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Fund intends to begin effectively counteracting poaching in the region as soon as possible.

This region of DRC is exceptionally rich in natural resources and evidence of human’s exploitation of these resources was everywhere. The first night in the forest was spent at an old mining camp, in tents pitched between sink holes for sifting minerals. Coltan, the highly valuable ore that goes into technology in the western world (cell phones, computers etc.) is the primary mineral mined in this area of the forest. In fact, the team observed sacks upon sacks of the blue-black mineral being toted out of the forest and flew back on a plane carrying 2,000 kilograms of it. In addition, rusted metal bins with smoke pouring from the top was a tell-tale indicator of palm oil production in the area. Many villagers were carrying wood out of the forest, some were collecting insects for protein consumption, but most baskets were filled to the brim with the orange-yellow palm fruit - from which the oil is extracted.  Palm oil and the correlating deforestation is most commonly associated with orangutans in Indonesia, but could this one day become one of the primary threats to the rainforests of DRC and it’s gorilla inhabitants?

There are a myriad of obstacles and challenges to consider as the Fossey Fund builds this new program. Working in the Democratic Republic of Congo is notoriously dangerous and extremely expensive, but the price tag is not too high for saving gorillas, one of the world's most crucial rainforests and the many other species who live in it.


Jessica Burbridge, Field Communications Officer

Fossey Fund to Launch New Grauer’s Gorilla Monitoring Program in DRC

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International will be expanding its conservation efforts to launch a new Grauer’s (eastern lowland) gorilla monitoring initiative in the Democratic Republic of Congo, beginning January 2012. The Fund is currently in the process of hiring an additional thirty Congolese field staff (25 trackers and 5 team leaders) to carry out data collection and monitoring of six designated populations of Grauer’s gorilla in the DRC tropical forests. This follows many years of aiding in the establishment of a string of community nature reserves in the area.

Victims of a War-Torn Country
Between Congo’s Maiko and Kahuzi-Biega National Parks, there stretches a corridor of lush rainforest whose inhabitants have been left largely unprotected, exposed to the conflict and corruption that has plagued the country for so many years. With various bands of rebels moving through the landscape and the local communities struggling to survive, the forest, and it’s vast resources, has borne the brunt of this desperate situation.
Conservation efforts have been limited and challenged due to the civil war that has ravaged the region throughout the last two decades. The forest is filling with illegal loggers and miners, whose presence increases the demand for bushmeat as a protein source. The rich Congolese land is being mined for coltan - an expensive mineral being used in technology production (cell phones, computers, etc.) and also for tin, gold, diamonds, cobalt and copper.
A paved road cutting through the heart of the forest to a mine has also created easy access for illegal loggers to move in. Should the conditions stabilize, it is likely that commercial logging companies will join in the race for Congolese timber. Additionally, local communities rely on charcoal production and subsistence farming to meet their needs. As the human population grows, more forests are converted to farm land, further contributing to the deforestation. And the armed groups living in the forest continue to exploit it’s precious resources to finance their efforts. All of these issues combine to create what could be the perfect storm for this endangered subspecies of gorilla. It is clear that quick action is required if there is going to be hope for their survival.
The Fossey Fund’s “active conservation” approach, developed by Fossey in her early years of research, has proven to be an extremely successful conservation method for Rwanda’s mountain gorillas. The Fund sends anti-poaching rangers into the park daily to patrol for illegal activities and poaching. Trained trackers monitor the nine gorilla research groups 7 days a week, 365 days a year. In fact, due to this “active conservation” initiative, Rwanda’s mountain gorillas are the only monitored population of great apes in the world that is actually increasing. The Fund anticipates that by applying the active conservation approach to this corridor of forest, the Grauer’s gorilla population will receive some relief from external pressures and the international scientific community will benefit from an increase in data on this lesser known gorilla subspecies. 

The Grauer’s Gorillas of DRC
Dian Fossey helped to make the plight of the critically endangered mountain gorillas of Rwanda known around the world, and now, their lesser known kin is in dire need of conservation efforts. Relatively speaking, much less is known about the Grauer’s gorilla, primarily due to the long term instability of the region. In fact, conservationists can not conclude an approximate population estimate for the subspecies. According to the IUCN’s Red List of Endangered Species, there could be anywhere between 4,000 and 25,000 Grauer’s gorillas remaining in the wild. Without an accurate census conducted in the area, it is impossible to know just how many Grauer’s gorillas survive in the wild today, and thus, what kind of extinction risk the subspecies may be facing.
Both classified as Eastern Gorillas, the Grauer’s gorilla split from the mountain gorilla some 400,000 years ago. They retained some resemblance with one another, however there are a few distinct physiological differences. The mountain gorilla has darker, thicker, longer hair (suitable for the high altitude and cold climate), a wider face and more angular nostrils. The Grauer’s gorilla’s physique is more suited to the warmer lowland tropical forest of Congo. There is one characteristic that both subspecies undoubtedly share: ranging long distances to meet their seasonal diet and social needs. These ranging patterns bring the Grauer’s gorilla into the forests outside of the protected parks in search of ripe fruit and other vegetation, and directly into the path of danger.
All of the four orphaned gorillas confiscated by park authorities since April 2011 are Grauer’s gorillas, and each is suspected to have been captured in the forests surrounding Walikale. Without a presence of conservation organizations or authorities in DRC’s forests, poaching and other illegal activities can run rampant and the Grauer’s gorilla populations are continuing to be fragmented and reduced as the human population density in the region rapidly increases.

Direct Grauer's Monitoring Begins
Juan Carlos Bonilla, Fossey Fund Vice President of Africa Programs says “During the past decade, the Fossey Fund and its partners have succeeded in establishing community-managed forest reserves in the eastern DRC. Habitat protection is the essential condition for gorilla survival, a necessary, but not sufficient condition. Our new program will go deeper and focus on direct monitoring and protection of gorilla groups in this vast region.”
There is much to be learned about the Grauer’s gorilla, says Fossey Fund primatologist Dr. Winnie Eckardt. “With the mountain gorillas, we have extensively studied their demography, social behavior, reproductive patterns, ecology. But with the Grauer’s gorillas, we don’t even know their abundance or distribution, much less behavioral patterns. We look forward to expanding our research database and helping to contribute to the conservation of this subspecies.” The primatologist hopes to make the journey to Walikale at the beginning of next year to share her field knowledge with the new staff.
There are a myriad of challenges that the Fossey Fund will face in order to establish this new program in DRC. While Walikale is the logical place for the program’s headquarters, the town does not yet have electricity or running water. Using generator power, the Walikale headquarters will serve as the logistic and administrative base for the program. All data collection and field communications will be managed through the headquarters. However, three mobile (tented) field stations spread out through the forest will serve the immediate needs of the trackers.
The forest stretching between the Congolese national parks are referred to as “community forests” or “community reserves”. Within the DRC, there are over 485 villages, and therefore, 485 “customary kings”. A primary objective of the recent Walikale expedition was to travel from village to village (via motorbike) and meet with many of the kings within the reserves, to introduce the Fossey Fund and the new Grauer’s gorilla conservation initiative.
Urbain Ngobobo, a Congolese conservationist previously working with the Frankfort Zoological Society, has come aboard to spearhead the program. Urbain is capable, confident and excited to lead this important new conservation initiative. He has a firm grasp of the important link between the community and wildlife conservation, says Bonilla.
Ngobobo says that it is paramount to “consider the people, community, development and conservation because they are all linked. When you are only looking at the biodiversity aspect and overlooking community conservation, it’s really very difficult to succeed. This is one of the major causes of failure of our national parks’ conservation strategies in Congo.”

The Fossey Fund’s Karisoke Research Center field staff has perfected the art of orchestrating daily data collection and behavior monitoring over the last four decades. Shortly after the Walikale headquarters is established in January 2012, the Fossey Fund hopes to share this expertise with the new team of trackers in Congo to better prepare them for the important work that lies ahead. The new field staff will be selected based on their experience in the forest, their physical condition and general knowledge of conservation and the environment. The recruits will be subjected to a similar endurance test that Karisoke trackers undertake (climbing Mount Karisimbi - 4507 meters - in one day) to ensure that they are capable of handling the challenging conditions.
"The Fossey Fund's expertise as on-the-ground field experts has been developed over our 45-year history at the Karisoke Research Center. We are very happy to be able to bring our skills and knowledge to the Grauer's gorilla landscape and to work with our partners in the community managed reserves," says Clare Richardson, Fossey Fund president and CEO. "The Grauer's gorilla is the least known of the gorilla subspecies in terms of number and range, but we have identified six important groups and have now begun to monitor and protect them."


**This article was published in the Winter 2012 Gorilla Journal. To become a member of the Fossey Fund and get a copy of the Gorilla Journal mailed directly to you, click here.
Jessica Burbridge, Field Communications Officer

In the Wake of Nyiragongo's Eruption

On my recent trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the rural road we took from Goma to Rumangabo passed right by Mount Nyiragongo. The volcano last erupted in 2002 (the 34th time since 1882), smothering the surrounding landscape in molten lava. Almost 10 years later, the plant life is starting to regenerate and a white coral-like lichen covers the dark volcanic rock as far as the eye can see.  I pleaded with Jackson (my escort and protector) in my broken French to stop the car so that I could hop out and photograph. Out there away from any village or town, it feels a little bit like a wasteland - but a really beautiful one - where you're the last person left on earth.

In January, I hope to be able to climb the volcano and photograph from the crater rim down into the massive, bubbling lava lake.

Orphan Gorilla Transferred to New Home

"Shamavu certainly endured a traumatic capture, as most poached infants do, witnessing the death of his entire family and pried from his mother’s lifeless body. He was reportedly confined in a small knapsack for a month before the ICCN confiscated the infant in Kanyaboyonga in the Walikale area of North Kivu province on Oct. 8th. When the ICCN received word that another gorilla infant had been poached, an undercover sting operation was initiated, and the team of rangers drove eight hours into the Walikale territory to meet Shamavu’s captors and pose as potential black market buyers. The three poachers were demanding $40,000 for the infant. If justice prevails, it appears that they will receive 10 years in a Congolese prison instead..."

Click here to read the story on Shamavu's rescue and transfer to GRACE

All images © 2011 J Shouse Photojournalism for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International

A Few Aerial Shots of Congo

Successful Trip To Congo

I traveled to Congo a few days ago to cover a story on Shamavu (the Grauer's gorilla infant recently confiscated from poachers) and his transfer to the GRACE center. Amazingly I found myself sitting copilot with Virunga National Park Warden Emmanuel De Merode in his 1975 Cessna 187. We flew across eastern Congo from Rumangabo to Butembo with the little orphan sleeping soundly on his caretaker's lap behind me. At GRACE, Shamavu will join 11 other gorillas of his own subspecies and learn important social and survival skills. We all hope that the youngsters will one day be able to be released back into the wild. The story will be published by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International tomorrow, but here's a few sneak peek shots from the plane!

*All Images © J Shouse Photojournalism for The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International*

Authorities Concerned Over Baby Gorilla Trafficking

"Baby gorilla trafficking in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo appears to be on the rise according to the Congolese Wildlife Authorities (ICCN) following the recent rescue of a poached infant gorilla.

This latest incident is the fourth since April of this year - the highest number of baby gorillas on record confiscated from poachers in a single year."

Click Here to Read the Article on allAfrica.com