The People and the mountain gorillas of Bwindi (Uganda) and Virunga (Rwanda) and the Pressures of Coexistence (2009)

I visited Uganda and Rwanda in 2009. Highlights of the trip including meeting the people in the small villages; seeing Entebbe and touring Kampala, the capital of Uganda; the stunning landscapes; the grim genocide sites and the Kigali Memorial Center in the capital of Rwanda; and of course viewing some of the mountain gorilla families in the wild. The families we visited were habituated to humans, and we were only allowed sixty minutes in their presence. We were required to maintain distance of seven meters to prevent transmission of disease from humans to gorillas; they have no resistance to human disease or even the common cold.  (However no one told the gorillas that they were required to stay seven meters away from us, and one brushed past me – when his shoulder impacted mine it felt like an oak tree as he moved silently through the rainforest. Our tour operator was Volcanoe Safaris.

The people of Uganda and Rwanda are so warm and engaging. We were welcomed at every turn. The intractable problem of providing sustenance for the dense human population through small farms, and the protection of the 700+ mountain gorillas in the national parks in the region is staggeringly complex. An additional complexity is ongoing exploration for subterranean oil reserves right in the heart of the mountain gorillas’ final remaining sanctuaries in The Congo. Let us just hope that new farming techniques, new ways of attracting ecotourism and new progressive political forces emerge to guide the region towards health, education, and well-being of the people, and at the same time ensure also the survival of this last remaining population of mountain gorillas (this species does NOT survive in captivity unfortunately; lowland gorillas survive in captivity, such as those in the gorilla habitat at the Bronx Zoo)…

The most moving experience with the mountain gorillas was when I was photographing a mother nursing her infant. The baby started fidgeting when my camera was click-click-clicking, and turned its head around to look at me. The Mom gave me a look which I distinctly recognized – “Will you stop already, don’t you see we’re busy here ?! ”  I stopped taking pictures, happy for the ones which I DID get (which you can see in the video below). I also did not wish to alarm the alpha male. That would not be a healthy state of affairs for me, and it just might stop my photography rather permanently.

PS: photography of the mountain gorillas is quite challenging! The mountainside is slippery with moss and wet leaves and very steep, the branches are filled with nettles which easily pierce skin; you have to hang on for dear life while trying to photograph the animals which are sometimes moving around. Often the light is very dim owing to dense rainforest canopy. Another huge problem is that the animals conceal themselves behind underbrush and it can be challenging locking on to get an in-focus photograph.  A special technique is required to get the shot and ‘trick’ the camera to focus on the central aiming reticle (instead of the standard “auto” focus which will focus on the underbrush instead of the animal hiding behind it). But I anticipated this condition and carefully practiced the technique prior to the trip, and got appreciable good results with which I am satisfied. I was shooting a full-frame Nikon D700 which performed superlatively, with various lenses used for these photos. I had a backup Nikon D90.

At one point I slipped on the moss and tumbled around 25′ down the slick mountainside, landing in a thicket of underbrush with nettles; Francois the lead guide came bounding down to retrieve me. He was seriously worried judging by the look on his face, but I was just laughing about it, totally embarrassed! (Francois was none other than Diane Fossey’s lead guide. And, I had just missed George Schaller who had been at Virunga Gorilla Preserve only two weeks earlier.  Schaller studied gorillas there in the late 1950’s, and inspired Louis Leakey and Dian Fossey).