Another Snare

The latest snare case: a female mountain gorilla in Nyakagezi Group,
Uganda, has wire wrapped around her elbow.

Last week started with bad news: we heard about another snared gorilla, the second case in less than a month in Uganda's Nyakagezi Group.

The trackers found a young gorilla with a wire snare around her arm and immediately called Dr. Benard Ssebide, our field vet in Uganda. They reported the gorilla seemed normal otherwise, with no sign of injury or swelling in the hand. That indicated there hadn't yet been any permanent damage. We quickly prepared for an intervention the following day.

Last month's case: a male mountain gorilla, Rukundo in Nyakagezi Group,
Uganda, has wire wrapped around his right hand.

Gorillas can sometimes pull out of a snare. If not, they can usually break free by biting or pulling on the wire or rope until it snaps. Unfortunately, this causes the loop to cinch even tighter around the snared finger, arm or leg. Because of the gorilla's thick hair, the only sign of the snare may be the frayed loose end of rope or wire.

In this recent case, the first thing the trackers noticed was something shiny sticking out from the gorilla's right elbow. The problem was much more obvious in Rukundo, last month's case: he had a loop of bicycle brake cable wire encircling his hand.

The young gorillas in Nyakagezi Group usually move with one of the three silverbacks.

The morning after the report came in, I packed up our intervention kit, drove to the Uganda border, did all the paperwork so I could cross, found Benard in Kisoro, a small town near Mgahinga Park, and continued with him to the park boundary where we met the trackers.

Our group reached the gorillas a little after noon, just as clouds began to fill the sky. We found our patient quickly and confirmed the problem. She walked past us and sat down near Mafia, the group's young silverback. As she ambled by, we caught a glimpse of silver wire around her right elbow.

Gorillas can't untwist the bicycle brake cable wire used for snares.

The gorilla eyed us a bit nervously for several minutes. Then she calmed down and began to eat bamboo. Although the wire wasn’t all that tight, there were several frayed ends poking out. It looked like (and turned out to be) bicycle brake cable.

There are reports that gorillas have sometimes been able to remove their own snares. So when a snare is loose, we may have the option of giving the animal a day or two under close observation. But no one has ever reported a gorilla untwisting a wire snare stuck near its elbow. Rukundo couldn't untwist the wire around his hand, either.

Dr. Benard Ssebide, MGVP field vet, Uganda

As I had during the snare-removal procedure for Magayane, a female gorilla in Rwanda who also had a brake cable wire snare around her hand, I assumed the role of photographer/videographer while Benard administered the anesthetic dart.

Our patient stayed close to one of two young silverbacks, which meant Benard had to wait patiently for almost an hour and a half before he got an opportunity to fire the dart gun. His dart and the anesthesia worked fine We began the procedure just as rain began to fall.

Dr. Benard Ssebide and Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) tracker Ishmael
position the anesthetized gorilla for snare removal.

We can only estimate the age of this female. She transferred from one of Rwanda's wild gorilla groups to this one several years ago. She's about the same size — around 40 kilograms (or 88 pounds) — as the case from last month, Rukundo, a young male. They’re probably also about the same age, between 6 and 7 years old.

I learned that she hasn't been named yet. Nyakagezi Group moves around a lot, and the composition of the group kept changing for many years. Now that it's more stable, I hope the Ugandans will give her a name.

Benard and Ishmael remove the snare.

The snare proved difficult to untwist or cut, despite the efforts of two men — Benard and tracker Ishmael — and two Leatherman tools. In the future, we need to carry even bigger wire cutters for these thick brake cables.

Finally, they managed to loosen the cable and we slipped it off over the gorilla's hand. It started to rain harder as we moved on to the next part of the exam. Benard asked the trackers to hold a rain poncho over us, which worked well enough initially, except for the hole you put your head through. We should have pulled the tarp out of the kit earlier when we had time.

After loosening the snare, we easily slipped it off the gorilla's arm.

Sheets of rain began to fall just as Benard started collecting blood samples, a routine step whenever we anesthetize a gorilla. The improvised tarp above us sagged under the weight of the water. When one of the trackers holding the poncho moved a few inches, a bucket of cold water poured down my back. I managed to smile. Better me then Benard, I thought.

Then, as if someone had turned on a faucet, a stream of water poured through the hole in the poncho onto the gorilla's belly. I swiped it away, looked up and got another small shower.

About 40 minutes after the gorilla went down under the effects of the anesthetic, she began to move. We hadn't finished everything we usually do during an intervention, including taking body-size measurements and other routine samples. Even so, we'd accomplished our main goal, removing the snare.

Gorillas tend to hunker down in the rain, and we wanted this one to find her family sooner rather than later. So rather than supplementing her anesthetic, we let her wake up. She recovered surprisingly quickly. She rolled to one side, got up and walked away from us a few minutes later, heading right toward her group.

Last year's bicycle brake cable wire snare was Magayane,
a female in Rwanda's Kwitonda Group.

Once again, I can't help worrying about the rule of threes. We've had two nearly identical cases in Uganda. I'm crossing my fingers that there won't be a third.

Maybe Magayane's case counts as the first. She had a snare of bicycle brake cable wire wound tightly around her middle finger. It damaged the blood supply and caused significant swelling. We didn't amputate the finger, hoping it would be OK. It wasn't. She kept the wound clean until the damaged tissue fell off (See Magayane Performs Her Own Surgery). Magayane's case was the first metal snare in years. Maybe these two cases in Uganda will be the last.

Farmland near Mgahinga National Park, Uganda

The rain let up slowly during our trek back. The minute we left the forest to walk the last kilometer through farmland, the sun came out. Oh well — at least our patient would soon be dry. The next day the trackers reported that she was fully recovered and with her group. Meanwhile, we've asked that the anti-poaching patrols in this region of Mgahinga be stepped up.

[Rwanda, April 20, 2008. Pictures: Dr. Lucy Spelman/MGVP]