Gorilla Protection

Category: Year of the Gorilla | Date: May 05 2009 | By: ian redmond

May 4, 2009: My apologies! It’s rather late in the year for the first YoG-blog from your roving Ambassador, but I’m seizing the moment en route for Graz in Austria, where I’m giving a talk tomorrow at a museum with a gorilla-themed art installation (see more info). 

My missions for YoG have been going well, but after successfully travelling all over Africa with ridiculously tight travel arrangements on two packed trips recently, today my luck ran out.  It was all going smoothly as I drove towards Stansted and at the appointed time of 0910, parked on a quiet slip-road off the motorway to do a 20 minute telephone interview with Brent Gregston of Radio France International.  Unfortunately, they didn’t call until 0920, and then spent several minutes doing sound-checks for all participants. In the studio were my goods friends Yvette Kabosa of UNESCO and Letitia Farris Toussaint, author of Gorillas – the Gentle Giants (see http://yog2009.org/index.php?view=article&id=110%3Agorillasthegentlegiantsbook&option=com_content&Itemid=67) and me were to record a ‘Crossroads Debate’ on the situation in the Virunga World Heritage Site in the light of the Year of the Gorilla.   The interview went well – and even included a few gorilla vocalisations (at Brent’s request) but it didn’t end until 0945 – quarter of an hour later than I’d expected.  You know how it is when one little delay leads to more and more – an incident on the M11 slowed the traffic, the bus from the car park sat still for ten minutes, then a staff change-over at the check-in queue meant… you guessed it - they closed the flight before I made it to the desk.  

It really is enough to make one do a hoot series and chest beat on the check-in desk!!  

For the next half-hour (during which time the plane sat on the tarmac a hundred yards away) I stood in another line to be re-routed via Linz, the nearest alternative Austrian destination served by Ryanair.  Still, the train journey to Graz, through wooded slopes topped by still-snowy peaks with an occasional roe deer at the forest edge, has given me time to blog for YoG.

My first engagement this year was in January - the UK launch of YoG, ‘Gorillas on Thin Ice’ at the Natural History Museum in London.  In recognition of it being only days before the 200th Anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, I borrowed a Victorian frock coat and top hat (always useful having a father in the theatre) and had fun playing Darwin on Ice with a group of unnervingly talented gorilla skaters (OK, human skaters in gorilla suits, but still very impressive).  We were joined by Donal MacIntyre, the investigative reporter with whom I worked on a BBC documentary ‘Gorilla Kidnap’ in 2003, and who had just begun starring in the TV programme ‘Dancing on Ice’ (he made it to the final too – must have been the inspiration he gained by skating with gorillas and a wobbly Darwin!). 

It was a light-hearted occasion with a serious message:  gorillas are iconic species, emblematic of the Congo Basin forests – the planet’s second green lung.  They may be skating on thin ice metaphorically, but the survival of gorillas and their eco-system is central to the future stability of our climate.   In other words, the negotiators who are right now hammering out text for the post-Kyoto Protocol Treaty need to factor in the role of tropical forests, and we in the developed world need to begin paying for the eco-system services they provide. This is why gorillas (and other keystone species such as elephants) need to be protected across their range so they can continue dispersing seeds and pruning trees as they go about their lives.  They are the gardeners of the forest, and if we value the forest we shouldn’t shoot the gardeners!

I have to say that so far, my Year of the Gorilla has involved disappointingly few gorilla encounters!  A few weeks ago, however, I did visit the Limbé Wildlife Centre in Cameroon (http://www.limbewildlife.org/ and http://www.yog2009.org/YoG_Downloads/Update_LimbeWC_March_09.pdf).   Although in a captive setting, the rescued gorillas there are always a delight to watch because their behaviour is so interesting.   I spent a couple of hours communing with a group of four – a blackback male known as Arno, who looks as though he hasn’t yet grown into his nose – it seems two sizes too big for his face! – plus two adult females and an infant called Adjibolo, who was exploring the properties of the volcanic rocks in her enclosure.

Some gorillas are very inventive in their play, and Adjibolo was tapping a smaller stone on a larger one, then scraping it and tasting the resulting dust, then squiggling on her back cradling the smaller rock on her tummy. Limbé is one of three official ape sanctuaries in Cameroon, all government owned but managed in partnership with different NGOs – a system that works very well.  Law enforcement is improved because there are suitable places to care for confiscated animals, and the sanctuaries have active conservation education programmes with living animals to inspire people and discourage them from having anything to do with the illegal wildlife trade.

I was at Limbé to help open the new Born Free Foundation Rescued Chimpanzee Enclosure (http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/primates/campaign-action/limbe-sanctuary/chimp-enclosure/) which had freed up the space for the smaller group of gorillas to live separately from Limbé’s larger group – necessary now that puberty is kicking in with some of the older males!   There was a strange symmetry to the above apparently unrelated events, because I had first seen the two female gorillas – Abby and Tinu - in Taiping Zoo when filming ‘Gorilla Kidnap’ with Donal MacIntyre.   They were among the Taiping Four – gorillas who were illegally captured in Cameroon, smuggled to Ibadan Zoo in Nigeria then sold to Taiping Zoo as ‘captive bred’ reportedly for $1.6 million.  The whole tawdry affair was exposed by the International Primate Protection League in 2002, and Malaysia eventually sent them to Pretoria Zoo in South Africa;  after years of requests by the Cameroon Government for their return, they finally came to Limbé with much fanfare in 2007 (http://www.ippl.org/taiping-four-home.php).  

Sadly, after apparently settling in well for several months, one fell ill and died.  A few months later a second died, and there is much anguished debate as to the causes and what lessons might be learned.   For all their physical strength, gorillas are surprisingly fragile and their immune systems seem affected by stress, which may have played a role in this case.   Abby and Tinu, the two surviving females, certainly seem well and relaxed in their new enclosure, and perhaps they will be among those in future that meet the criteria for rehabilitation back into the wild?   The Director of Wildlife for Cameroon, Mr  Philip Takor Eta, reaffirmed in his speech at the Born Free enclosure opening that Cameroon’s long-term plan is to identify a suitable forest site for rehabilitation of confiscated animals, but no-one is under any illusions as to how difficult and expensive that long process will be.

May 5, 2009: One of the other Cameroon sanctuaries is already in a forest in Mefou National Park near Yaoundé (http://www.cwaf.org/gorillas-mefou-national-park.htm ; Mefou is co-managed by CWAF, which has just re-launched as Ape Action Africa, see http://www.apeactionafrica.org/index), with gorillas and other primates in electric-fenced enclosures.  These give the orphans an opportunity to forage for some of their own food, but the enclosures are not big enough to sustain the number of animals without supplementary feeding.  It is wonderful to be able to watch gorillas in their natural habitat, even behind a fence.  

An artist named Diana Thater was so inspired by her visit to Mefou, she created a video art installation which is currently displayed at the Kunsthaus Museum in Graz, Austria - http://artipedia.org/artsnews/exhibitions/2009/01/27/gorillagorillagorilla-diana-thater-at-kunsthaus-graz/ - which is – as you might have guessed - why I am in Graz today, to give a YoG lecture and encourage Austria to support our efforts.

Cheers, I will try to blog again soon,

Ian

Tags: events, Ian Redmond, lectures, publication, Year of the Gorilla, YoG Ambassador