[Click on the pictures to see larger versions with captions.]
My cell phone rang just as we stepped through the break in the stone wall and out of the park. There was a problem with twins in the Kwitonda Group. "Twins?!" I asked Jean Felix (our Rwandan field vet). "Are you sure? That's so rare."
He explained that one had died and one of us needed to go check the mother. He’d tried to call earlier, but reception near the base of Sabinyo Volcano is bad.
I handed the phone to Elisabeth (the park's vet technician). She quickly got the rest of the history in Kinyarwanda and translated the conversation back to me. The babies must have been born overnight. When the trackers arrived first thing this morning, one twin appeared fine; the other dead. I glanced at the sky. Maybe we could get to Kwitonda before the coming deluge.
The hike to Sabinyo Group had taken about an hour from the wall — a relatively short trek. We'd found the gorillas at low altitude — about 2,700 meters (8,500 feet) — eating bamboo near their night nests. They looked fine, as expected for a routine health check. The trackers reported that one female seemed a bit slow, though. We watched her stuff her mouth full of green plant material, and noticed her belly looked a bit round. Maybe she was pregnant.
This wasn't the first time Elisabeth and I had found ourselves hiking down one mountain only to find ourselves going up another, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Luckily, Jean Felix told us that the Kwitonda group was close. Elisabeth and I would go have a look, and he could bring our field kit if necessary. Unless the mother was severely ill or injured, we wouldn't intervene with a newborn baby. Nature often takes its course here.
I nearly stumbled on the silverback, Kwitonda. (Gorilla groups are named for the dominant male, called a silverback.) The group was indeed not more than five minutes walk from the wall. He sat with his back to us, eating. Nearby, several infants and juveniles were digging at the base of a fallen tree, stirring up flies and making a mess. The new mother, Mugeni, had her back to us in some bushes beyond the group of playful youngsters.
Before we could get our cameras ready, Kwitonda wandered away toward an area of fresh vegetation. Several gorillas followed, including Mugeni. She lifted an infant by the arm, then held it close to her body on the right side. The baby was fully-haired and looked like a normal full-term infant, its mouth hanging open. I couldn't see the second baby.
We waited until the gorillas repositioned and settled. This time, Mugeni chose to sit down facing us. Thin vegetation surrounded her, but now we could see both infants, each in the crook of an elbow. The light was fading fast thanks to the approaching storm. This might be our only chance to get a look at the gum color of the live infant and to see the condition of the dead one. Once the rain came, the gorillas would take cover.
I focused my binoculars. At first I couldn't be certain which infant was which. The head of the one on the right had curly hair; the other's looked smooth, as if freshly combed. Then the mother repositioned the infant in her left arm. It raised a tiny hand and grabbed the skin near her breast. She moved again, holding the body of the second infant close to her right side. It didn't move. The one on the left opened its mouth and yawned. I saw bright white teeth and pink gums. It reached for its mother again. When Mugeni moved her right arm, we could no longer see the dead infant and guessed she’d let it fall to her lap, which was hidden from us by vegetation.
I offered the binoculars to Elisabeth, pulled out my camera and began clicking away, hoping to keep ahead of the rain and get at least one decent picture.
Kwitonda moved again, but slowly, leading the group a little farther into the bamboo. He sat down again to eat. Some groups have more than one breeding male, but not this one. Kwitonda is definitely the father of these twins. I'd seen behavior like his before. The silverback takes things easy when there's a new infant, as if he understands the new mother needs a rest and a bit more time to feed herself and the infant.
"Yes, the chief knows. It's normal for him not to move very far," Elisabeth agreed. Though trained as a technician, she's as much a doctor as any of us. She knows these gorillas. I learn something new from her every day — about the animals, the people, the country and the language.
Huge drops of rain suddenly poured from the sky. We discussed the situation briefly. Mugeni would carry the dead infant for several days, maybe longer. She might leave it behind during a feeding session, or in her night nest; we'd ask the trackers to stay close to her for the rest of the day and try to find her sleeping place first thing tomorrow. If we could recover the body, we might learn what had gone wrong.
I worried that the living baby had to share its mother's chest with the rapidly decomposing body of its dead twin. Bacteria or fungi could start growing in its tissues, exposing the healthy newborn to a load of organisms. Its immune system wasn't even 48 hours old. But there was no action we could take.
Elisabeth and I traded a few more thoughts, yelling above the noise of the downpour. Mountain gorillas rarely have twins, and only one pair has ever survived (they're in the Susa Group and about to turn 3 years old.). This twin had undoubtedly died as a result of birth injuries. Perhaps Mugeni simply hadn't been able to break the umbilical cord and stimulate both infants to breathe in time. If so, it had been a natural death and we saw no reason to worry about a health problem in the mother or the surviving infant. One of the vets would come back the next day to check again.
As we turned to leave the forest, I smiled and said to the trackers, "Congratulations, you may not have two babies, but you have one and it looks great. A new baby is always a good thing!" Elisabeth nodded, translated some portion of my statement and we said our goodbyes. I'd see the trackers again tomorrow.
[Rwanda, April 25, 2007. Pictures: Lucy Spelman/MGVP]
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