Ndeze is thriving – with Ndakasi – in the Senkwekwe Center

The Senkwekwe Center – the home of our two gorilla orphans Ndeze and Ndakasi – is almost complete. You will recall that we raised funds to finish the Senkwekwe Center to turn it from a 40mx40m facility, into a lush forest custom-built sanctuary of 1 hectare (2.5 acres).

This is the perimeter wall of the Senkwekwe Center, that is now complete and is being rendered both inside and out. An electric fence will run along the top of it – there is 400 meters of wall in total.

These are the builders rendering the wall. We have used the same bricks as those used for building the primary schools around the Gorilla Sector. We make the bricks on site which facilitates construction enormously.

This building sits at the top of the site and is one of the entrances into the Senkwekwe Center. There are 4 rooms: a veterinary intervention room, a veterinary office/lab, a storeroom and a room for the carers.

When you have entered through the building in the previous photo, you get to this, which is 4 cages. All the cages are joined and all will have water fountains. This facility is actually built for 4 adult Mountain Gorillas – and the idea is that Ndeze and Ndakasi, in the near future, have less human contact as they grow bigger.

Here I am just documenting all the construction, and the vast mounds of earth that have to be moved! The Senkwekwe Center is built on a very steep incline, so we need to make sure there is good drainage because of the heavy rains.

It really is a mammoth project – but as soon as the money hit the account we were ready to go, and the walls and building have gone up in under 2 months. This has been helped by 2 months of dry season, which is just coming to an end. We hope to have the facility fully functioning by the first week of October.

Thanks again to all of you who made this happen from a financial perspective. And thanks to the ongoing support of the Gorilla Doctors Jan and Eddy and Katie at DFGFI in making this all become a reality.

I will keep you posted!

This mound of trash was a stone’s throw from the road

I was absolutely horrified to see this. It is pretty much a first. There was all kinds of garbage - paper, plastic, syringes… you name it, with groups of kids and women going through it to see what they could recover.

Medical waste in Virunga

With a growing population of over half a million in Goma, and nowhere to really dump waste, it is hardly surprising that our park has ended up with this problem. Yet another problem. I will speak with my superiors to see what the appropriate action is - it is clearly a political problem as much as a practical one, so we need to find solutions on both fronts. We cannot let this pollution go on though, in a National Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ntamuvulira – soon after the birth. We have yet to know if this gorilla is a boy or a girl.

Silvestre was a Ranger for 42 years, including many stints in the Gorilla Sector. He was involved in habituation of gorillas when it first got underway in the mid 1980s.

Kabirizi has of course become a father again since the birth of Ntamuvulira last April – just this month. He continues to dominate his family at all times, and very effectively.

In recent days the Rangers have been observing Kadogo develop a new bond with Kakule.

Kadogo bonding with Kakule in the forests of Virunga

Kakule’s parents are Mawazo and Bilali – so this relationship is quite unusual and we have not seen this before in such an overt way. Perhaps Kakule is making up for the fact that he does not really have a partner. Mawazo and Kasole, the other 2 Silverbacks, have teamed up with Bilali and Nyabigoro, leaving Kadogo out in the cold.

Kadogo assumes a fatherly role with his nephew Kakule (Mawazo is Kadogo’s brother)

We shall continue to monitor this friendship and see how it develops. As always our Rangers visit the Munyaga family daily to check on their whereabouts and their overall health. At the moment it is actually peak tourist season so international visitors are also getting the chance to visit all the gorilla families, including this one. We currently have about 30 visitors a day.

If you wish to Guard Kakule or Kadogo please go to their profiles and hit the Donate Now button. For $10/month you can contribute to the protection of our Mountain Gorillas. Thank you!

The latest addition to the Kabirizi family of Mountain Gorillas

In contrast with his long-time rival Humba, who seems to enjoy being photographed, Kabirizi is reticent from human attention and aggressive towards people so it’s difficult for the Rangers to observe the Silverback and his family, and their life as a group remains somewhat opaque. But despite this we can report that one week ago there was another addition to the family’s baby-boom. Watchful and protective as always Kabirizi didn’t let us take pictures of the proud mother or her baby, whose arrival takes the number of individuals in the group to an astonishing 36.

This newborn will be named soon by the Rangers

The sheer size of the family adds to the difficulty of monitoring its members, but our team of specialist Rangers kept working in the field until they identified the mother as the ever affectionate and genial Rubiga, and ascertained that her baby is in good health. Rubiga has had four babies: Gasusa and Kangugo - who disappeared immediately after the tragedy of 2007 and haven’t been seen since - and Kabila, who was born in 2006 and is now an adolescent. Rubiga is 19 now and has had a tough life but she’s still a devoted mother. We wish this baby gorilla – already fortunate in having been born into a large and stable family to a loving mother and a mighty father - a long, healthy and peaceful life.

Kabirizi - a father once again

The birth of a Mountain Gorilla is always a great joy to us and is, of course, an important event in the life of this critically endangered species. Our team will keep reporting from the field and we in turn will keep you informed about this and any other addition to Virunga’s Mountain Gorilla population.

Bukima

There was the short period of co-direction with Pili-Pili, who was forced to leave the group and flee with the sub-adult female Bavukahe. And before that the Black back Mukunda led the group and, for a time, tried to defend it from the would-be kings Pili-Pili and Bukima. Sadly for Mukunda it wasn’t to be, and he left the group for the solitary life. The cloud of Mukunda’s departure had its silver lining: Bukima was free to impose himself upon the rest of the group, and life became a lot more peaceful.

The exceptions to his rule are Baseka and Kongomani the two young people Black backs who seem to have inherited their dead parents’ habit of ranging around the forests near Bikenge and Bukima and raiding the farmers’ fields. For now at least Bukima, who has never been known to leave the park himself, seems to be tolerating these nocturnal sorties. But Bukima dealt with Pili-pili and Mukunda, and we hope for everyone’s sake, that he will make these two Black backs see sense.

Baseka, Kongomani and Noel in the farmers’ wheat field.

This occupation has been disastrous for Virunga. Rogue soldiers have been directly responsible for around 70% of the poaching during the period. And, having been tasked with protecting the local population, some of these soldiers could not resist or be prevented from abusing that responsibility by profiting from crime. As a result the park’s antelopes, buffaloes, elephants, hippos - and who knows what else – have been decimated. Even the fish stocks in Lake Edward have been badly depleted.

Thanks to the military authorities, the ICCN, the Field Team and, of course the Friends of the Park this operation has been successful. We have put all the human and material resources at our disposal - insufficient as they are - into making this work. With continued peace and security, our effort and your support, we can rebuild the Virunga National Park of old.

Ranger Achile Valava injured on august 2009, in the charcoal operations.

At around 5 am, under cover of darkness, a group of 11 men armed with AK-47s had come from Muramba - an area within the park along the shore of Lake Edward - and set up an ambush around the Muko Station. At 8 am, when the Rangers from Kyavinyonge arrived for work, the rebels emerged from hiding and gave the order to disarm - an instruction that was not heeded by Achille. We heard all this from George, a 12 year-old boy who witnessed these events and managed to escape. As George ran towards the village of Kyavinyonge he heard the sound of gunfire. He then alerted some soldiers who, after some delay, reached the station only to find poor Achille dead, stripped of his plastic boots and his rifle, with gunshot wounds to his hip, chest and arm.

Achille is the most recent of Virunga’s Rangers to have had their lives ripped away from them in the line of duty, but he is mourned as though he were the first.