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These rangers need new waterproof boots.

Each Virunga ranger is issued one pair of rubber boots. Although these cost only $8 each, it’s money we don’t have readily available. The Virunga region experiences heavy rainfall. Mud and wet feet are the norm, and our rangers carry out patrols in rough terrain from lava fields to thick jungles in pouring rain and sloshing through an abundance of mud.

We need to buy a complete new supply of these boots for all the rangers, plus a few extra. We have 273 rangers and are hoping to buy 300 pairs of boots so we have extras for emergencies. At $8 a pair this is only $2400. When we ask for help, it’s often for operational costs that are difficult to find the money for. Large grants usually go toward projects, not the daily costs of keeping the park running, so purchasing items such as boots, uniforms, sleeping bags, tents, and rain gear for our rangers is difficult. We are asking for your help.

I understand that boots are not sexy or exciting, but by donating $8 you can supply a ranger with one of his most important pieces of kit, especially on patrols.  We need only 300 people to give $8 each to buy these boots…

…and make this guy (and all our rangers) very happy.

TO DONATE: At the top right of this blog post, choose the amount you want to give and click the red donate button.

Welcome to the second in a series of gallery photos from our readers who responded to a call for photo donations. Today’s photos are from Morgan Trimble who contributed many photos, and since I couldn’t choose just a few, I’ve decided to let her have the whole show today.

This is the Rugendo family, dear to our hearts. This family only has seven members and it’s been an uphill battle for them following the massacre of 5 members of the family in 2007, including the impressive head of the family, silverback Senkwekwe. Last year was the first time the family grew to a size big enough to allow tourists to visit them. They are surprisingly habituated considering what they went through, and tend often to come right up within several feet of you before you can back away.

I’ve included a few extras of the erupting volcano as well. Thank you for sharing your beautiful photos, Morgan.

Below are a series of photos of mom with her baby climbing all over her. I love the various expressions. Human moms…I’m sure you can relate.

Silverbacks Bukima and Kongomani quite often walk right up to you, or run past within a meter. It’s quite the adrenaline rush.

Some of our awesome rangers who lead the gorilla treks. John, on the right, is a 2nd generation ranger - his father retired last year. He hopes his son will choose the same profession.

This is the mountain gorilla graveyard at the Virunga National Park headquarters of Rumangabo. Senkwekwe’s grave is here, the former patriarch of the Rugendo family who was murdered in 2007 along with 4 adult females.

Bukima Tented Camp, where most gorilla treks begin, had a stunning view of the erupting volcano between November 2011 and March 2012.

The Nyamulagira volcano eruption of 2011-2012.

To see more of Morgan’s stunning photos, click HERE to go to her wildlife page. Please remember that her photos are copyrighted and shouldn’t be reproduced or used elsewhere without authorization.

Jonathan Stark is on a mission to raise up his Jersey community in support of Virunga National Park.

Many people have asked how they can support the park in a meaningful way. We believe wholeheartedly that a single individual can be the spark that makes a difference. Jonathan Stark is one of these people.

Jonathan wanted to help Virunga. He lives on the small island of Jersey between England and France and works for the Durrell Wildlife Park. With the help of our Virunga staff, Jonathan created the “Jersey Friends of Virunga” with the mission to gain a commitment from the Jersey community to help protect a specific sector of Virunga National Park.
The goal is to raise enough money for the annual running costs of the Mikeno Sector – home of our mountain gorillas - by encouraging local businesses and individuals to make an annual pledge and raise approximately £64,300 per year.

The new Jersey Friends of Virunga website. Click on the picture to go to the website.

Last Wednesday, the Jersey Friends of Virunga (JFoV) kicked things off with publicity in the local papers, the launch of the new website, and an event at Durrell that included an introduction of the project and an auction to raise money. Sarah Bendelow, who is from Jersey and works for Virunga National Park, introduced the Jersey Friends of Virunga concept of uniting the island community in support of the rangers of the Mikeno sector, where 200 of the worlds 800 remaining critically endangered mountain gorillas live.  The auction of Virunga merchandise, many of which traveled all the way from Congo, made a nice profit for the park.

Sarah Bendelow introducing the concept of Friends of Virunga to the people of Jersey.

Jonathan was very happy with the evening launch of the project.  “All in all it was a great night, raising around £600 for the park whilst helping to spread the message of Virunga to a wider audience. Like I’ve said before, all great journeys must begin with a single step and after the interest generated by the opening night I think we can attract real support from Jersey for this amazing national park.”

If you would like to start a similar project in your own community, please contact us by responding below in the comments, or sending us an email at  info at gorilla.cd. The park is facing a financial crisis. Imagine if hundreds of people like Jonathan, like you, were able to raise up supporters for the park in their own community. You could change the world from your own home.

Our two active volcanoes: Nyamulagira in the foreground, with Nyiragongo in the distance.

This is for all our readers interested in our volcanoes. There’s been some recent unusual activity.

As most of you know, Nyamulagira is one of our two active volcanoes. It’s the smaller, but more active one, erupting in various places around the mountain about every two years. The most recent eruption, you will remember, began in November 2011 and ended in February 2012. That eruption took place on a flat area to the east of the mountain.

Looking inside Nyamulagira crater, now showing some significant new activity.

In March, the top of Nyamulagira started smoking from inside the former lava lake. Our volcanologists are showing particular interest in this new activity. Here are their observations (see series of photos below that show the volcano from 2010 to now) :

• On February 24^th, 2012, the seismic network of the OVG recorded a significant series of “explosion quakes”. It was determined that it originated within the Nyamulagira crater, and was due to gas explosions.
• Since that day, the activity at the November eruption site (northeast of the volcano summit) decreased significantly while activity inside the Nyamulagira crater increased.
• At the beginning of March, an extremely strong smell of SO₂ (sulphur dioxide) was detected. This simply means that some magma closer to the surface fractured the crust up within the crater and started to degas.
• In April, the activity inside the “pit crater” was more active with a cylindrical hole in the middle where the degassing/steam is coming out.  The “pit crater” was the site of the Nyamulagira lava lake up to the dramatic eruptive event of 1938-1940, when all the lava drained out and the lava lake disappeared.

Conclusion?

There are two possibilities being speculated by the volcanologists:

1. It could be related to a continuous draining of magma from below the summit crater up to the November north-east eruption site, or…
2. It could be the start of a new eruptive phase, possibly related to the formation of a new lava lake!

We like lava lakes. We’re hoping for option 2.

Here are a series of photos beginning November 2010:

We recently made a request on our blog and Facebook page for gorilla photos from Virunga National Park to use for promoting the park and framing in the lodge. We received many contributions and I would like to show you some of these beautiful photos. Today’s Gorilla Gallery photos are by Imaire Depoli and Michael Valigore. Many thanks to all the photographers who contributed! There will be more Gorilla Galleries over the next few weeks.

Photos by Imaire Depoli

Photos by Michael Valigore

To see more of Michael’s photos, click HERE

Two weeks ago, Virunga National Park received a Pedal-Powered Cinema (PPC) – a brilliantly-designed contraption that generators power to a speaker and projector system via a bicycle. This PPC will offer a facility for screening conservation films to schools and local communities without power, helping to educate both children and adults on the value of the park’s mountain gorillas and other animals. We are very excited about this and can’t wait to start using it.

Getting this awesome machine was a joint effort by several people and organizations. The Pedal-Powered Cinema was the ‘brainchild’ of the Great Apes Film Initiative. The first one is currently in use in Uganda with great success. This is the second to make its way to Africa.

Two of our rangers, Bertin and Jean Bosco, test the pedal-powered cinema at Virunga National Park.

Linda Nunn from Gearing Up 4 Gorillas (G4G) has been wanting to provide a PPC for Virunga for some time. The opportunity arose with a generous sponsor, Animal Friends Insurance of the UK, who offered to buy the Pedal-Powered Cinema for G4G to bring out for the children of Virunga. At the end of March, Linda was finally able deliver the PPC to us. Everything but the bike can pack into a suitcase.

The pedal-powered cinema at work in Uganda.

Although it will take us some time to get organized for regular use, we know from Uganda’s experience that it will be a massive hit. Many children and their teachers have never seen a film before, so it will be quite a novelty and a perfect vehicle for talking about conservation.

We would like to thank Linda Nunn, G4G, Animal Friends Insurance, and the Great Apes Film Initiative for their generous support for this environmental education project.

Linda Nunn tests out the PPC before bringing it out to Congo.

Children are delighted by the cinema. Some have never seen a film before.

Magnificent Silverback Kabirizi, photo taken in 2007 by Paul Taggart

If you could hear the way we talk about our silverback Kabirizi, you might think we were discussing a hot movie star. He’s our big, beautiful stud, the baby-maker of the habituated silverbacks, the one with the biggest female gorilla following, averaging about 34 family members he’s responsible for protecting. Until recently, it was hard to imagine him as anything more than the biggest and best.

Sadly, this is changing. Kabirizi is getting old and although the rangers don’t know his age because he was a wild gorilla before becoming habituated, they estimate around 35 years. This has left him open for challenges from younger silverbacks.

Photo taken in January where Kabirizi had lost his upper and lower canines in fights with Bageni.

Bageni, another silverback in the family who is believed to be Kabirizi’s son, has challenged him repeatedly over the last month. Kabirizi has taken a beating, losing teeth, getting injured, losing weight and hair. The interactions began in March:

March 11: Following a fight, the family split up with Kabirizi taking 24 members and Bageni taking nine.

March 18: They got back together.

March 20: Another fight and split. Kabirizi went with 14 members, Bageni with 19.

March 21: The group came back together, but with an obvious division among them.

On March 29, Dr. Eddy from MGVP observed the family and noted that although the group seemed to be together, Bageni was separated from Kabirizi, moving ahead with his group.

“The silverback Bageni was seen crossing in the bush away from Kabirizi and moving with another group of gorillas,” said Dr. Eddy in his report. “During the visit we didn’t see Bageni very well as he was moving fast ahead leaving Kabirizi behind. All the observed gorillas (25 in total) appeared normal as well as Kabirizi despite his health condition, which looks to be deteriorating progressively but slowly.”

Kabirizi, photo taken by Dr. Eddy on March 29th. There’s one visible cut on his neck.

Today, the rangers reported that the group is still together, but once a silverback begins to lose control, it’s likely that other solitary silverbacks might step in to challenge him as well as Bageni. Females may choose to stay with him for a while, but ultimately, he will not be able to stand up to the challenges.

We’ll keep you posted as this story progresses.

One of our favorite photos by brilliant photographer Paul Taggart. We use this one a lot. It’s from 2007.

I know that many a great photographer has visited this park and taken awesome photos of our awesome gorillas. Some of you have offered them to us for our use in promoting the park. We want to take you (and any other) up on this kind of gift now for a couple of reasons:

1. We’re getting bored with using the same photos over and over again, no matter how good they are.
2. We actually need much more variety of high quality, sharp focus, high-resolution gorilla photos. We’d love to have mums with babies on their back, playing together, great close up of faces with those gorgeous red eyes shining, shots of funny-looking babies with the hair sticking straight up and the big eyes, majestic silverbacks, etc.
3. We are specifically looking for 3 fantastic photos to blow up to A0 size (that’s BIG poster size) to print on canvas, frame, and hang in the new Mikeno Lodge.
4. We need more good photos to use in promotional material for the park (brochures, videos, advertisements, etc.)
5. We can’t afford to pay for this. Sorry, but it’s the absolute truth. The money is so tight right now we can barely breathe.

If you have some awesome photos you would like to “donate” to the park, please contact me (LuAnne) at info@gorilla.cd and I’ll let you know how you can upload them using Dropbox. It would be great if you know the name of the gorilla family, and can tell us when the picture was taken. The rangers can probably identify the specific gorilla.

Thanks so much! Hope to hear from you.

Another favorite photo from 2008 by award-winning photographer Brent Stirton, whom we love.

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ANDRE & THE ORPHAN GORILLAS

I visited the Senkwekwe Orphan Gorilla Center on Sunday and had a chance to watch Andre inside the enclosure with the mountain gorillas.  Andre’s relationship with the two older gorillas has really changed over the last year. Maisha – 10 years old - and Koboko - 8 years old - weren’t raised by Andre like the two small gorillas, so they haven’t felt the same bond. But more and more when Andre goes into the enclosure, they show genuine affection for him.

Andre with Ndakasi

On Sunday, I watched Maisha with her hand on Andre’s chest, stroking his shirt letting him rub her head and chest.  Koboko cuddled with Andre, and pushed the little ones aside to get his full attention. Koboko doesn’t like anyone very much, or at least doesn’t show it, so this is a real accomplishment.

Koboko and Andre

Koboko, the only male of the orphan family, was sick last year and his hair turned a little brown, as well as losing hair. He’s getting healthier now.

Of course the 5-year olds, Ndakasi and Ndezi, got their turn to crawl all over Andre, draping themselves over his shoulders like a shawl, or standing on his shoulders.

Ndeze loves to climb on Andre’s shoulders. The gorillas learn from the caretakers to clap when they’re happy, but it’s not a natural thing in the wild.

Two of the three caretakers of the orphan gorillas: Andre and Richard.

Please consider joining others to support the orphan gorilla center. Without your help, we will not have the funds to continue. Click HERE to go to the project website where you can donate either one-time or monthly to help us care for these mountain gorillas.

CHIMPS

Chimpanzees near the park headquarters with yellow fruit in their mouths.

On a different note, the small family of four chimps continues to hang around the Virunga headquarters office, and jump inside the gorilla enclosure. Yesterday they came close enough to catch some photos.

The largest of the chimp family.

You may have noticed that our website was down for about two days. There wasn’t much we could do about it. Our webmaster reported that the problem was not our website but with the domain provider who had some issues affecting many IP addresses worldwide. Thankfully, we’re back. Thanks for your patience!

I would also like to tell you, especially our Australian readers, that the TV show “Sunday Night” on Channel 7 will air an episode on Virunga National Park and the Gorilla Doctors this Sunday, 18 March. Because we can’t watch it here in Congo, I would love to hear about it from those who can. Click HERE to watch a sneak peak on the episode. It looks quite dramatic, but they did have an unusual time trying to track the Rugendo family who had traveled deep into the forests, about a day and a half trek away.