gorilla.cd

Silverback Bukima of the Rugendo family. © Micheal Valigore

The Rugendo mountain gorilla family is well-known around here for many things.

• In 2007, this gorilla family lost five family members in what has become known as the Rugendo Massacre when silverback Senkwekwe and 4 adult females were killed execution style.
• The family is extremely habituated, meaning they regularly come out of the forest and into cultivated land or wander through the Bukima patrol post peeking into windows.
• And they like to move, living up to the meaning of their name: “traveler”

At Bukima Patrol Post - the Rugendo family is extremely habituated.

Last month, they roamed all over the park, to the far corners near Uganda, south toward Rwanda, and yesterday they came back to their normal place of residence, the Bukima area where most visitors begin their gorilla treks.

Rugendo baby © Micheal Valigore

Yesterday, Rugendo family had a clash with our solitary silverback Mukunda close to Bukima patrol post. Mukunda had also come out of the forest to eat crops. The interaction resulted in no injuries, which is good news, but the rangers are watching carefully to make sure they don’t get into trouble.

Solitary silverback Mukunda on a day outside the forest.

(Thank you to Micheal Valigore for his photos:  www.michaelvaligorephotography.com)

Dr. Mike Cranfield with MGVP came to Virunga National Park to check on an injured gorilla. Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP) is a partner with the park, working as vets to save injured and sick mountain gorillas.

By Dr. Mike Cranfield, MGVP

Virunga National Park Warden of the Mikeno sector, Innocent Mburanumwe, reported that the lone silverback Karateka had fought with the silverbacks of the Kabirizi group and was in a life threatening condition. We packed the bags and decided to travel first thing in the morning after receiving a second call to say that Karateka appeared a bit improved. We crossed the border and drove through Rumangabo to Bukima and hiked for more than an hour to find Karateka.

A cut can be seen on Karateka’s left leg.

He was lethargic with scrape and cut near his right eye. He had a cut on his left abdomen and a bad laceration to his left hand. His abdomen appeared sunken. While we were there he would walk about 12 yards and then sit and eat. After careful examination he was deemed not to be in a life-threatening situation. After the assessment we decided to call off an intervention attempt.  Dr. Arthur, Virunga National Park veterinarian, agreed to stay at Bukima for two days in order to assess him further and report. The next day Arthur reported that Karateka seemed to be much improved.

Karateka has several wounds, including on his hand.

Two weeks ago, the SB Mukunda made another dash for people’s crops, which put him at risk of being killed by angry farmers.  This meant we had to consider an aneasthetic intervention to bring him back in the park.

Last time Mukunda was out of the park in July last year at Kibumba village and market. There he was brought back in the park under full anesthesia.  It carries with it some risk.

This time it seems he may have been aware about the intervention.  As soon as he saw the vets, he made a dash for the park, just picking some maize to eat along the way. Surprisingly, he was quite and peaceful and friendly towards us and appeared quite comfortable about the whole situation.

All’s well that ends well.

Upload this to Facebook

We need your grant to publish this video to your Facebook profile.

Video Published

An error occurs - Try later...

This video is too long to be uploaded to Facebook.

This may take some time...

On May 12, the Gorilla Doctors were informed by Virunga National Park officials in DR Congo that the lone silverback Mukunda had left the national park and traveled to the village of Rugari. You may recall from last year that Mukunda has a habit of traveling far outside the park, seeking human settlements. In May and July of 2010, the Gorilla Doctors had to twice intervene, darting Mukunda with an anesthetic drug in order to bring him back to his home.

This month, Mukunda spent three days going in and out of the park to raid crops from farmers’ fields. On the 12th he traveled 4km out of the park, crossing the bridge at Kanyemondo across the Gasasa torrent and then to Rugari town in Kigarama village where he slept.

In Rwanda, Dr. Mike decided to cross the border at 7am on May 13 to be on location at 8am, prepared for a full immobilization. Drs. Mike, Magda, and Julius and met up with Drs. Eddy and Jacques once in Congo. The MGVP team reached the place where Mukunda spent the night around 8:20, and met the Virunga National Park team with the HUGOs. HUGO stands for human-gorilla. These are local people hired by the park to help move Mukunda and other gorillas back into the park when the gorillas try to come out.

When the team was assembled, Mukunda decided by himself to start walking back to the park. The Gorilla Doctors, Virunga National Park rangers, and HUGOs together herded Mukunda towards the park. Mukunda was moving fast, but taking some breaks to rest and eat. During this trek he was seen eating ripe bananas, bamboo shoots, potatoes, and corn. The weather was extremely sunny and Mukunda was obviously distressed by the heat. He was seen sweating, breathing heavily, and looking for shade. At 10am he took a break, napping for about 2 hours. When he awoke, he ate some bamboo, and continued towards the park.

Around 12:45 he entered park and laid down for a quick snooze. After about 10minutes he was up eating his bamboo shoots.

The effort was a complete success. Generally the communities were calm and cooperative. Mukunda has no fear of people and walked within 10 feet of buildings and human activity. Hopefully he will remain within the park boundaries in the future.

The week was busy and difficult but quite positive.  We had a number of serious operations on the Lake, following reports of Mai Mai militia incursions.  We were also able to see through a major forum with about 150 delegates from the local communities to try to soften the edges on some of the land conflicts that we are facing and to establish a better dialogue.

Gorillas

• Mukunda has been at it again.  We found him loitering with intent in the village of Rugare.  When this happens, we have to get him back into the forest before he gets hurt.  Mike Cranfield with his team of vets were in town and happened to have a few large looking needles to immobilize him.  It seems he took one look at them and bolted up the hill back into the forest, which is a big success for us and especially for the gorilla vets, as it may have avoided him getting killed by understandably angry farmers.

Mukunda in a maize field, stealing.  He’s now the park’s no. 1 pest.

Security

• We have been receiving quite worrying reports on militia incursions deep into the park towards Chiondo, on Lake Edward.  A Mai-Mai militia presence this deep in the park would be a serious setback for us, but also poses a real threat to the fishing community at Vitshumbi.  The operations started last Monday.  A platoon of rangers was able to locate their camp almost immediately and destroyed it, but the militia had already escaped into the bush.  On Friday we were able to locate them and made contact early on Saturday morning.  After a brief exchange of fire, five militia men were arrested and their weapons were seized.  One of them was wounded on the leg and taken to a nearby hospital.  The others were immediately taken to the park headquarters at Rumangabo, and transferred to the military court in Goma.  By law, we can only keep them for 48 hours.

Community

• We organized a major forum to try to establish a stronger dialogue with members of the local community.  Over 4 million people live within a day’s walking distance of Virunga National Park, and the pressures on the park are enormous, mainly for land but also for fuelwood, fish, meat and so on.  Our main objective was to try to identify new approaches to resolving some of these conflicts that didn’t involve direct confrontation between our rangers and members of the local community.  It was, I have to say, a very heated debate, but it was also very constructive.  One of the main things to have come out of it was the establishment of 36 community dialogue committees, which will be hard to manage but may provide part of the solution to some of our most difficult problems.

Most of the roofs, chimneys, and walls on the first 6 bungalows are completed, and the main lodge roof will begin this coming week. Windows and doors are being installed.

Tourism

• The lodge and the staff training are progressing well, and we certainly hope to open our doors before the end of July.  A big event for Virunga.  The whole team has been heavily involved in pushing the promotion at the end of May, and we’re trying to target 200 visitors over the two-week period.  At the moment we’re at about 70…

Rangers

• Nothing major to announce.  The first round of officer training has been completed.  A few months ago, we decided to put all of our senior staff (about 57 officers) through 2 months’ officer training.  We’re hoping it will make a big difference to our ability to protect the park’s wildlife.

Next week, I think, I hope, will be a quieter week to catch up…

I’ve stated in the last few Warden’s Logs that we’ve had “quiet” weeks. In case you are getting tired of hearing me say this, let me just remind you that a quiet week is a blessing in Virunga. It means no attacks, no deaths, working hard and moving forward. All of this is great news for us, although perhaps not the most dramatic news for you. After a rough start to the year in January and February, be thankful with us for the “quiet” weeks.

SECURITY:

Rangers remove marijuana plants found in the forest.

• Rangers found illegal charcoal kilns and marijuana in the forest and arrested two men involved. At the end of 2009, a huge operation by the park rangers ended much of the illegal charcoal production in the park, but rangers are seeing evidence of more activity now as well as finding marijuana plants, which they destroy.
• Rangers caught two Rwandan pygmies in the Mikeno sector with poaching equipment on the trail of elephants. The two were arrested and turned over to the warden of the Rwandan park.

COMMUNITY:

The Environmental Education Center

• The Environmental Education Center is now complete and interior planning is underway for educational displays, movies, and teaching material. Read the full story »

Mukunda – the solitary Silverback that was relocated to the park just a few weeks ago – is now in Rwanda. These are the latest reports from the field, from my Rangers and also the Rangers with ORTPN, the Rwandan Wildlife Authority with whom we work closely to protect Mountain Gorillas.

Mukunda refuses to remain in the forest

It seems that despite our best efforts, and those of the HUGOs, this Silverback refuses to stay in the park. He remains intent on feasting in the fields of the local communities and ravaging their crops – maiz, bananas etc. He is also becoming aggressive toward humans. And of course gorillas do not know international borders like we do – so it makes no difference to them whether they are in Rwanda or Congo.

Read the full story »

The Solitary Silverback Gorilla Mukunda had been ravaging the crops of local villagers living around Virunga’s Gorilla Sector for two months. We were starting to fear for his life, as his systematic crop-raiding destroyed the livelihoods of the local communities who depend upon their agricultural produce to survive.

The Rangers had to take action to get Mukunda - who had strayed over 5km from the forest in search of maize and bananas - back to the park.

Watch this video to see the daring intervention by Rangers and the Gorilla Doctors to re-locate Mukunda back to the forest. (The video starts with the HUGOs trying to chase Mukunda back to the park).

Upload this to Facebook

We need your grant to publish this video to your Facebook profile.

Video Published

An error occurs - Try later...

This video is too long to be uploaded to Facebook.

This may take some time...

Read the full story »

Buhanga, the 23 year old solitary Silverback of Congo’s Gorilla Sector, has died. He was found yesterday near Gatovu patrol post, his favorite haunt, lying face down in a stream struggling to breath. Innocent, Dr Magda and the Rangers were with him when he took his last breaths some 30 minutes later. Today Dr Jan will perform the necropsy to determine the cause of death, which we believe to be natural. He will then be buried in the Gorilla Cemetary at Rumangabo.

(See Update with new photos at the end of this entry, posted 6 hours later).

Buhanga had been a solitary gorilla for many years, and did not have any offspring that we knew of. His father was killed in crossfire in 1997. Read the full story »

I have received reports from Rangers at the Gatovu patrol post in the Gorilla Sector that Buhanga, one of Virunga’s 6 Solitary Silverbacks, is sick.

Read the full story »