National Geographic Magazine Article: Who Murdered the Virunga Gorillas?

Last July, seven members of a family of mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park were murdered by armed men. The July 08 National Geographic article, written by Mark Jenkins, addresses this horrific event. It is a thorough piece of investigative journalism and well worth reading in order to understand how complex and dangerous wildlife conservation is to carry out among three warring armies, poachers of wildlife and trees, refugees, subsistence farmers, desperate poverty, corruption and greed. As you will learn, the gorillas were victims of the battle for control of the illegal charcoal trade, estimated to be worth $30 million USD a year, by two rival militias and the Congolese army.

Setting the scene for the Virunga gorillas' slaughter in his opening paragraph, Jenkins writes, "The patriarch of the gorilla family, a 500-pound silverback named Senkwekwe, would have sensed that the assailants were near, perhaps wrinkled his wide, black nose at their unfortunate smell, but he would not have been alarmed. Senkwekwe had seen thousands of people and had come to accept their proximity as irritating but unavoidable."

If Senkwekwe had remained wild and distrustful of man would this have improved his and his family's chances of survival? Or is no species, wild or habituated, ever safe from man? I have wrestled with the concept of habituation since I met Kingo and Makumba, the habituated silverbacks of Nouabale-Ndoki and Dzanga-Ndoki National Parks. In order to protect gorillas we need to know more about them. But I am not persuaded that what we undertake in the interests of science is altruistic. Once we have habituated gorillas, we have a responsibility to protect them which we can only do if we are present. To be present takes funding, which is where revenue from tourism comes in once funding for science dries up or is focussed elsewhere. But what happens if, in the case of the Virungas, we can no longer be there to protect habituated animals? Ultimately, gorillas might be better off without us. Last week, Nouabale researchers announced their new estimation (extrapolated from nests they counted each morning) of how many western lowland gorilla survive in Central African forests - the encouraging number of 125,000. I immediately thought "What excellent news, now let's leave them alone!"

BBC Film: The Secret Gorillas of Mondika
This 2005 BBC video, recently aired again on Animal Planet, is well worth finding if you are interested in a Republic of Congo gorilla safari. It centers on Kingo, the habituated silverback of ROC's Nouabale-Ndoki National Park.

29-08-2008