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Crouching as low as possible, I peered at Nyiramurema through the bamboo thicket. This was our first glimpse of the wary gorilla after hours of tracking. I could see only part of her brow and a few tiny fingers — her infant's — gripping a clump of hair at the base of her neck.
Marc, our tracker, took my hand and tried to pull me closer for a better view. As he pulled, my left foot began slipping downhill on a pile of dry bamboo leaves, leaving my right knee to sink into the muddy ground. Struggling for balance, I couldn't move. No matter, she had already disappeared.
We resumed our slow crawl through the thicket. Marc moved with ease along the narrow, tunnel-like trail, cutting twigs and spikes out of the way with his knife. At one point, he got down on his stomach and pulled himself forward on his elbows. I followed clumsily, going down on my knees often and grabbing bamboo stalks for leverage.
Elisabeth and a second tracker, Jean, stayed some distance behind us. Later we would switch so they'd be first in line. Only extreme care would allow us to get a good look at this gorilla. Away from the security of her family, Nyiramurema feared people, even those she'd seen before.
Despite our precautions, the gorilla heard us and sounded a warning — not a typical grunt but a combination of a cough and a bark. I motioned Marc to stop for a moment so I could listen. Was her infant coughing also? We hoped not.
These two belong to the Kwitonda group, which had experienced a sad week already. After the silverback fell ill with coughing and lethargy, the respiratory disease spread through his family. Each day, one or two new cases cropped up. A few days ago, Mugeni's month-old baby had been found dead.
Mugeni herself had a mild cough; the baby had been the only gorilla without any signs of illness. Evidently, the coldlike virus had suddenly overwhelmed its immature immune system. Mugeni continued to carry the decomposing dead baby — typical gorilla behavior.
On the day Kwitonda felt better, he led the group far away in search of bamboo shoots. Nyiramurema stayed behind in the nest with a bad cough. The baby also began coughing.
Respiratory illness accounts for a third of all known causes of death in the mountain gorillas habituated for tourism in Rwanda. The majority of those who succumb to secondary bacterial infections are less than 2 years old, so we've been keeping a close eye on this infant. (Infant mortality is generally high in wild animals. For this reason, park officials wait a year to name the babies.)
Then, Nyiramurema and her infant disappeared. The Kwitonda group lost three individuals in the course of a week.
I'd worried about Mugeni's baby the day Kwitonda started coughing. But Nyiramurema's cough — and her infant's — seemed no worse than those of the others in the group. None of us believed Nyiramurema was dead, we thought that maybe she simply couldn't keep up. She lost a foot to a snare years ago and moves more slowly than the others. Then again, I've learned to my sorrow that sick gorillas sometimes just disappear.
Thankfully, the tracking team found Nyiramurema and her infant yesterday. The mother gorilla had been foraging near the park boundary. Marc predicted a short walk today to check her. Instead, after locating her night nest high in a tree about an hour's walk into the forest, we were on her trail for three hours, going steadily up. She seemed to be following a buffalo and elephant trail, rather than looking for Kwitonda's trail. Why the silverback wasn't looking for her, I had no idea.
Now Marc was pulling on my hand again, urging me farther into the dark thicket. I could hear the popping, crunching sound of a gorilla breaking and then eating bamboo. As we crawled another few yards the noise stopped. Nyiramurema was only about 4 feet away on the other side of the dense brush and this time I had a broken view of her upper body.
Quickly raising my binoculars, I found a small gap in the twigs and focused on her face. Her eyes and nose were clear; head up and alert, she appeared to be listening for us. Before I could adjust my cramped position to look for the infant, she moved off again. At least we hadn't heard the little one cough. And the mother was eating.
Elisabeth and Jean now took the lead. We were hoping the gorilla would move into a clearing so that we could see her whole body as well as the infant. I wanted to be absolutely certain that both were strong and recovering from the respiratory outbreak.
A few minutes later, Nyiramurema emerged from a thicket and walked along a narrow grassy patch to our left. Elisabeth hopped a fallen tree to get a look. I tried to follow, but got my foot stuck in a mass of vines. By the time I pulled free, the gorilla had almost disappeared again. But I had enough time to see the infant riding on its mother's back in a normal fashion, holding on firmly, head up and looking around. It glanced back at my binoculars with bright, curious eyes.
Nyiramurema sped on ahead. She appeared strong and fit. Elisabeth flashed her bright smile. She, too, had gotten a good look at both mother and infant, and agreed with me that, medically, there was no reason for concern.
We watched the back of the infant's head bob up and down with the mother's uneven gait until both disappeared into the greenery. The trackers would stay with Nyiramurema for another few hours and hope to pick up her trail again in the morning. At that point, I realized my legs and arms felt like jelly from all that crouching. I was more than ready to go back down the mountain for a hot shower.
Would this gorilla find her way back to Kwitonda? Would he find her? Or would she meet a lone male? To be continued . . .
[Rwanda, May 25, 2007. Pictures: Lucy Spelman/MGVP]
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