Quest: Mountain Gorillas: Discovery Channel

Magayane Performs Her Own Surgery

Magumu, a subadult female, is missing all four fingers on
her right hand due to an old injury — probably a snare.

Three weeks after we removed Magayane's snare (see Snare Scare) I made a return visit to Kwitonda Group to check on her recovery. Sadly, she's one of dozens of mountain gorillas maimed by traps set by poachers. Some have been patients of MGVP at one time or another. Others were injured before the groups were habituated for tourism. In this family, there are two other gorillas with noticeable old injuries: Magumu, another young female, is missing four fingers on her right hand.

Nyiramurema is missing her left foot due to an old injury — probably a snare.

Nyiramurema, Umoja's mother, has no left foot, though she compensates extremely well. She and Magumu, along with Magayane and the rest of the Kwitonda Group, moved from DRC to Rwanda a few years ago. We don't know for certain what happened to them before their arrival, but it's likely they encountered poachers. When gorillas fight, they tend to inflict deep lacerations that leave a scar, rather than a neatly severed digit or limb. Kwitonda himself has two bent fingers on one hand and is missing a finger tip on the other — he could have been caught in a snare or involved in a fight. Both would have been reasons to move.

After an easy half-hour's walk into the park the trackers found the gorillas just waking up. Within minutes the entire Kwitonda Group had disappeared within an enormous vine-covered tree. The combination of low light and leaf shadow made it impossible to see much of anything. Craning my neck and squinting, I could see only the dark outline of the silverback about two-thirds of the way up. The trackers spotted Magayane's head at one point, but there was no way I could see her fingertips. Not to worry — no tree lasts long with 16 gorillas in it.

Magayane favors her left hand, injured by a snare three weeks earlier.

The trackers led me around to the other side of the tree, anticipating where Magayane would appear next. She's usually somewhere near the younger gorillas, grooming or playing with them. It wasn't long before the infants and juveniles slid out of the tree, hanging onto branches until they gave way, then tumbling to the ground. Kwitonda followed with three females, including Magayane. The group sat down in a small clearing for a grooming session. I didn't need binoculars to see that her finger was in worse shape than I’d expected.

A close-up view of Magayane's injured finger.

Pale white tissue — dead bone — protruded from the end of Magayane's left middle finger. I nearly said "Ouch" out loud. The trackers had reported earlier that although Magayane's damaged finger looked a bit swollen and discolored, she was eating well and acting normally otherwise. They hadn't seen the exposed bone until today. Magayane favored her injured hand, but she also seemed to be functioning pretty well. I watched her groom Umoja; she simply held her sore fingers out of the way. Then she rolled over on her back to rest.

Obviously the snare had damaged the superficial structures of her middle finger — the skin and nail — as well as deeper ones, cutting off the blood supply to the bone. The quickest way to resolve this problem was surgical amputation. On the other hand, gorillas recover fairly quickly from digit injuries and Magayane had a good chance of healing without complication, and without another intervention procedure. If infection set in, we'd reconsider. There was no reason she should lose more of her hand than she had already.

The next morning, Elisabeth and I returned to the group. When we got our first close look at the damaged finger, Elisabeth reacted as I had the day before — she raised her eyebrows and suppressed an exclamation. The wound didn't look any worse to me. In fact, it looked a bit better. I could see healthy pink tissue at the base of the exposed bone instead of the crusty dark tissue from the day before.

Magayane treats her own wound.

Elisabeth reminded me that gorillas spend a lot of time treating their own wounds. They'll pick at a wound to help keep it clean, and others will join in. Just at that point, Magayane lay down on the ground near us and put her finger in her mouth. This time, I did say "Ouch," and added, "Yikes! That must hurt." We could see that the end of her finger, the bone segment called P1, was somewhat mobile. That was a good sign, though it must be giving her a lot of pain. The sooner this piece disarticulated and fell off, the better.

We watched the gorilla work on the wound with her tongue and teeth. She was trying to break through the strands of tissue holding the joint together -- a strategy identical to surgical amputation, though we of course would use a scalpel blade or a scissor to cut the ligaments. I whispered to Elisabeth that Magayane no longer needed us vets. She’d needed us to get the initial snare off, but from here on, taking care of the injury was well within her abilities.

Magayane used the fingertips of her right hand to pick at the wound for a while, then put the injured finger back in her mouth. Fascinated by her behavior, I decided that this case was worth monitoring every few days or so until it resolved, so that we could photo-document the progress. Had Magayane been a nervous gorilla, this wouldn't have been possible. The movements and range of the Kwitonda Group also made tracking her relatively easy.

Jean Felix visited next and reported that the bone was still there. I went again the next day, hoping that Magayane — and time — had finished the job. On my way up to the park, I picked up several of the trackers in our truck. I often give them a ride when we join them for a monitoring visit. After saying good morning, I asked about the finger. The answer: "Tombe" ("fallen" in French). Finally, the tip had fallen off. The surgery was over.

Sulubika, a juvenile in Kwitonda Group, helps Magayane clean her wound.

Not only did Magayane continue to treat the wound on this day, several other gorillas joined in. Sulubika seemed particularly interested. Grooming is a huge part of gorilla social life, and treating wounds is simply a part of this natural behavior. So none of what I was seeing was new to the gorilla experts. It was just a new experience for me. The gorillas need the vets for some problems — removing snares or treating pneumonia, for example — but not for others.

Watching Magayane perform her self-treatments, I couldn't help comparing her physical toughness and pain tolerance to those of a human. The sight of her working at the fingertip made me cringe; yet five minutes later, she'd be asleep, playing or eating. On one occasion, after finishing a treatment, she paused to look around. Raising her body on one elbow, the gorilla stretched out her arm and rested her injured hand on her knee. Someday, I'd like to send that photo to the poachers.

[Rwanda, Sept. 20, 2007. Pictures: Lucy Spelman/MGVP]

Snare Scare Video

Lucy shot video during the recent operation to treat Magayane's snare wound [Snare Scare]. The video illustrates the challenges Lucy faces everyday while observing and treating wild animals.

Snare Scare Video

Art Teaches Conservation

Art instructor Eric Mutabazi teaches drawing to the Kabeza class.

MGVP's first round of art classes ended this week with a proper art show. What does art have to do with mountain gorilla medicine? The answer is simple: communication. We can't ensure the health of the gorillas by working in a vacuum. Do Rwandans know that their health is connected to that of the gorillas? How can MGVP help people and gorillas live healthier lives? Art gives us a way to explore these ideas together, despite cultural differences.

AoC director Julie Ghrist points out each class's artwork in Kabwende

Artist Julie Ghrist runs the art project, called "The Art of Conservation: Creating a Healthful Connection Between Mountain Gorillas and People." When she and I brainstormed the name, we chose a long descriptive one. It seemed important at the time because we didn't have any artwork to share. Now we do and we're excited about the fact that the art can speak for itself.

A Kabwende class art lesson shows examples of
environmental destruction (top) and protection (bottom).

Julie organized the curriculum so that the students received technical training tied to specific topics. For example, the environment was the subject of the lesson on painting a scene with a human figure. The top half of the paper depicts destruction like setting fires and shooting animals. The lower half illustrates protection like planting trees, tracking gorillas and farming instead of poaching. The art show offers a selection of these themed lessons.

A selection of artwork during screening for the first show.

Choosing the artwork for the show — one piece per student, 150 in all — wasn't easy. Valerie (translator), Eric ( instructor) and I met with Julie for hours to make the selection. We spread the various drawings, pastels and paintings out on Julie's dining room table. One group of pictures, from a lesson on using watercolors to draw a live animal — a gecko — was so good that we wanted to include them all.

MGVP staffer Felicien Mulinda helps hang the show at Kabeza.

I left the team long before they finished matting the artwork and didn't see it again until the first of three shows at Kabeza. Felicien Mulinda, who works as gardener/guard for MGVP helped us put the show up. He wore his new AoC T-shirt, designed by Julie. The design on the front is her original artwork "12 Mountain Gorillas." I asked Felicien later what he thought of the whole event. He answered, "Très bien" (very good.)   

Julie hung the artwork on locally-made bamboo mats so it could be easily moved. Designed to share the art produced by the different classes, the exhibit also served as the final lesson. I made it to all three of the shows. Though I didn't understand the conversation, it was clear that the students were interested and excited. Many found their own work first then moved on to view the rest.

Humans and mountain gorillas share many things, including disease susceptibility, the need for a clean environment, food, shelter and water and a sense of personal hygiene. These ideas were introduced to classes in different ways. At Ninda, Julie arranged for a briefing on HIV/AIDS. Then Eric gave a lesson on drawing a six-panel story board in colored pencil about the presentation. These drawings caught the eye of Ninda community leader Cecile Nyirabahutu during the show.

Translator Valerie Akuredusenge joins Ninda class in song and dance after a lesson.

Though the classes were structured around themed drawing lessons, Julie encouraged — and welcomed — any and all forms of art. Many students wrote poems or songs; some created special dances. At the Ninda class, every lesson ended with some form of music. We learned that Valerie is both an excellent translator and a terrific dancer!

Soprano Virginia Croskery visits the Kabwende primary school class.

Julie invited various guest teachers to the classes, including soprano and music professor, Virginia Croskery. At Kabwende primary school, Virginia greeted everyone with a few verses of "Now I Know My ABCs" and "Doe a Deer." After asking the kids to sing for her, she picked out one tune, changed the Kinyarwanda words, and soon had the whole class singing the "Tooth-Brushing, Hand-Washing and Singing Feels Good Song."

The Kabwende class enjoys acting to music.

Virginia also showed the classes another form of creative expression — acting. After distributing colorful fabric and hats as props, she gave the students a scenario and asked them to act out a solution: your goat is sick, your mother is sick, wind blew the roof off your house and a child is lost on the way to school. The results for each of the three classes were remarkably similar. Students worked together to solve the problems and they had fun!

The Kabwende students view work by the Kabeza class during the show.

The artwork produced by the AoC classes has helped me better understand how Rwandans view the Virunga Volcano Mountain ecosystem. Most have never been in the gorilla's habitat, making the forest a vague, somewhat scary place. While I view farming as potentially damaging to the environment, people living near the park see it as an example of environmental protection. Otherwise, food and shelter would be poached from the park.

Kids in the Kabwende class paint their final art on t-shirts.

The poverty here was a challenge for Julie when she first started the classes. Many people are desperate for something to help raise their standard of living and some of the adult students hoped the art class would give them job training, or even money. Though that was beyond Julie's scope, she did find a way to give each person something special: an AoC t-shirt with his or her own artwork on the front — a souvenir of class participation and achievement.

Julie hands out finished t-shirts to Kabeza class; this design was inspired by ORTPN.

I enjoyed watching Julie hand out the personalized t-shirts to the Kabeza class. One man's design included a gorilla, an elephant, a heart-shaped symbol and the letters O R T P N — the initials of the Office Rwandais du Tourisme et Parcs Nationaux. During my visit to his class I'd explained that the vets work very closely with ORTPN. I was pleased that he'd remembered.

The Ninda class watches a slide show in the makeshift theater.

Julie also wanted to share photos she'd taken during classes with the students. She asked Faustin Nemeye, another of MGVP's gardener/guards, to help create a makeshift cinema out of bits of cloth, plastic tarp and bamboo. We planned to project the slides on a white sheet hung in the shade using our digital projector running off a charged battery for electricity. But on a bright, sunny day, creating shade turned out to be a challenge.

Everyone said, "No problem ("Ntakibazo" in Kinyarwanda,) we can make it dark enough using everyone's spare scarves." The theater worked wonderfully, though it looked more like a bowling alley. The Ninda students smiled and laughed during the slide show, seeing themselves at work drawing, acting and singing. Once again, Julie had found a way to give something back to the students.

Ninda class member, Sebakarabingwa, tries out a new guitar.

The AoC is still a new project and we need to find ways to get the art — all forms — into the community. The classes have already made one thing clear: Rwandans living near the gorilla park want to feel and be healthy. They want to improve their daily hygiene. And I see a way that MGVP and its partners can help: by providing a decent supply of handkerchiefs, soap and toothbrushes to accompany the songs that explain why they matter.

[Rwanda, Sept. 1, 2007. Pictures: Lucy Spelman/MGVP]