[Click on the pictures to see larger versions with captions.]
The group's leader, Kwitonda, sat up and coughed several times, blowing a blob of clear snot out his right nostril. Some squirted onto the hair on his right forearm. Immediately, he licked it off, then pursed his lips over the wet hair to squeeze out the last bit of moisture. Next he cleared his nose, using a fat fingertip to scoop out the watery fluid. He coughed again and blew out a fresh supply. I imagined he’d have a busy day trying to stay clean.
After another coughing spasm, the 400-pound silverback repeatedly licked his lips. White phlegm covered his pink tongue. He must have horrible postnasal drip and maybe even a fever. Then he paused to scratch himself on each inner thigh, one side at a time. At least he felt well enough to groom himself. He looked around, apparently noticing that most of his family had left to eat. A few feet away, two young females played in the nest (a big patch of flattened vegetation), waiting for the chief to get up — or so it seemed.
Elisabeth and I stood watching, hoping for the same thing. If Kwitonda ate something, even just a little, we'd feel reassured. We knew he'd gotten up late yesterday, too. That was when trackers had first heard the cough and called the vets to take a look. Jean Felix (Dr. Kinani) had made the first check. By the time he got to the group, Kwitonda had begun to move around and eat. We’d come back today to check on the chief and to discover who else might be coughing.
Minutes into our visit, one of the females and her 2-year-old coughed a few times. The mother ate; the infant played. Those were good signs. Mugeni went by quickly, holding her child; both looked fine. We heard one other cough from an unidentified gorilla in the distance.
We know gorillas get upper respiratory disease, often in the rainy season — which is now. They cough, sneeze, act lethargic and usually get over it, like humans. We believe it's viral, at least at first, though this has never been proven. Some gorillas get really sick, especially if they end up with bacterial pneumonia. The young and the old are at greatest risk, again, just like us.
We continued to observe the group. Gradually, they wandered off to feed. Kwitonda moved only to reposition himself. During the next hour, he continued to cough, pick and lick, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying down. By this time yesterday, he'd been up and about.
On the positive side, the discharge from his nose and on his tongue was thin and clear, not yellow or thick. And the cough seemed to start in his throat, rather than deep in the lungs. The bad news: all of the gorillas in this tightly-knit group would be exposed in a big way.
My face and hands suddenly felt cold and I realized clouds were rolling in. I put up my hood, glanced at the sky, and said to Elisabeth, "It would be good if the sun came out today." She laughed, having figured out by now that I'm overly optimistic about the weather.
We decided to watch Kwitonda a while longer (in all, we spent almost three hours with the group) and then check on each individual. Standing a few feet from the sick silverback, I thought, OK, there's nothing to be done at the moment. He doesn't need antibiotics yet; more importantly, his illness isn't life-threatening, nor is it likely to become so. He's in the prime of life and should get over this just fine. I was about to turn to Elisabeth when she whispered her thoughts to me: as usual, we were in agreement.
As if to illustrate the fact that the entire group was at risk for this nasty cough, a young female walked over and sat down next to Kwitonda. Occupied with the effort to keep his face and hair clean, he ignored her at first. She inched closer to him, staring. Kwitonda made a threatening gesture with his massive head. The youngster ignored the threat, perhaps sensing he didn't really mean it. Then she touched her mouth ever so lightly to the clear snot running down his lips. Great, I thought, it's only a matter of time before they all get the cough. I worried especially about Mugeni's baby. Her last one died of pneumonia just a year ago.
As we walked out of the park, I asked Elisabeth about the flu or grippe. It had been a particularly severe flu season in this region of Rwanda, starting in February and lasting right through April. The gorillas usually get coldlike symptoms during the rainy season, from May to June.
There seem to be two possibilities that would explain these symptoms in gorillas: either mountain gorillas harbor their own set of viruses that can cause colds or flu-like outbreaks, or they get them from people. I think it's the latter more often than not — and so do many other scientists who study gorilla health.
We have some data that supports this theory. When the vets anesthetize a mountain gorilla for any reason, like snare removal, they take extra blood samples to be stored for future analysis. Preliminary studies indicate that the gorillas have antibodies in their blood to a number of viruses, bacteria and parasites also found in humans. But taking this research a step further would require the unthinkable: repeated anesthetizing to collect tissue samples, perhaps even infecting wild gorillas with a low dose of an organism to see what happens.
We'd never do this to an endangered species — the risks are too great. And the answer might not change the outcome. The last time I had a bad cold, I nursed it with rest and green tea, then eventually got better.
[Rwanda, May 10, 2007. Pictures: Lucy Spelman/MGVP]
Amazing photos! I've only seen gorillas in the zoo.
Posted by: Frieda66 | June 01, 2007 at 11:45 AM