Mapendo Update

Mapendo falls asleep under anesthesia.

MGVP director Mike Cranfield and I were finishing up a meeting when Magda returned from Goma, where she'd spent the day working with Jacques.

"So, how's Mapendo?" I asked. Magda smiled broadly and replied, "A bit fat!"

She and Jacques had just given the orphan gorilla a physical exam under anesthesia. Even better, Mapendo's ringworm is resolving and she shows no signs of rickets, the nutritional disease that contributed to the death of her companion, Vumilia.

Dr. Magdalena Braum and Dr. Jacques Iyanya examine Mapendo.

Magda and Jacques had collected samples for a variety of routine tests, including fecal parasite check, blood cell count, serum chemistry analysis and infectious disease screening. They tested Mapendo for recent exposure to tuberculosis by injecting a tiny amount of a reagent, tuberculin, in her upper eyelid — a standard TB screening tests for primates.

They also vaccinated her for measles, rabies, tetanus and polio. We vaccinate the gorilla orphans in our care because they spend so much time with humans; it's easy to do and we can check on how well the vaccines work by measuring blood antibody levels in the future.

Mapendo eats clover.

The TB test is read at 72 hours, so we get this result quickly. If the gorilla has recently been exposed to the organisms that cause tuberculosis — either the human or bovine form — or has an active TB infection, its eyelid will swell. This test can be confusing, however. False positive reactions have been known to occur in gorillas exposed to related bacteria that live in the soil, requiring a battery of additional tests.

Fortunately, Mapendo's test was negative. We'll test her again in a few months and then every year she lives in captivity. With TB on the rise in human populations, I worry a lot about this disease. Not only is diagnosis difficult, but treatment requires daily oral medicine with a cocktail of drugs, a protocol that would be impossible to administer to the mountain gorillas of Virunga and Bwindi or to the Kahuzi-Biega Grauer's gorillas.

Mapendo with a caretaker in February.

Our lab manager, Jean Paul, ran a number of routine tests on the samples from Mapendo. He found a number of parasites in her fecal sample. Most healthy free-living gorillas carry some parasitic protozoa, worm eggs and larvae. But because they move around a lot, these parasites rarely build up in their environment.

This is not true for captive-living gorillas: because Mapendo lives in an enclosed space, her parasites could cause a problem someday. She'd already been treated with deworming medicine, so it's clear that she'll need to be on a regular regimen of parasite testing and treatment.

Mapendo soon after her arrival in January.

Jean Paul also found that Mapendo has high cholesterol — 195 mg/dl. Not too high, but above reported normal levels for captive western lowland gorillas and higher than what we've recorded for mountain and Grauer's gorillas.

We think the problem is her diet, specifically her three daily feedings of infant formula milk. Just as in humans, high-fat diets have been associated with elevated cholesterol levels and heart disease in captive-living western lowland gorillas. Mapendo needed the extra calories when she first arrived, but no longer. The caretakers will reduce the volume of milk and switch to a lower calorie formula.

Mapendo has an excellent appetite.

As noted earlier, another test to be run on Mapendo's blood samples is infectious disease screening. Here we look for evidence of exposure to a number of viruses as well as those we vaccinate against (after we give the vaccine, these tests will always be positive). Possibilities include herpes, Ebola, influenza and parainfluenza.

Unfortunately, sending samples to outside laboratories in the U.S. or Europe takes time. We need an export CITES permit first. In Mapendo's case, this document must be issued by officials in DR Congo. We've requested it, but know we'll have to wait.

Three Grauer's gorillas housed at the interim quarantine
facility, in Kinigi, Rwanda.

Though we can push through the red tape to expedite the permit process if the gorilla is sick or we're worried about a possible disease outbreak, Mapendo's situation doesn't fall into this category. We do need her results before she can live with other Grauer's gorillas, but that's still a distant prospect.

Last week, a number of the partners involved in orphan gorilla care visited yet another location in Congo that could be developed into a gorilla sanctuary. But such a facility is months, if not years away from becoming reality. And we still need an interim quarantine facility near Goma, like the one we have in Kinigi, Rwanda.

Mapendo's teeth

Mapendo's physical exam yielded one more important piece of data: her age. Though we'd photographed her teeth before (when her mouth was opportunistically open) we couldn't be certain of her dental formula without a hands-on exam.

Magda and Jacques confirmed that Mapendo has both of her upper and lower premolars but no molars, which places her age between 2.5 and 3.5 years. Given her size (she now weighs 35 pounds/16 kilograms) we think Mapendo is probably about 3. At this age in the wild, she'd still be nursing a bit, but would be mostly foraging on green plants and a few fruits. No wonder she's gotten a bit plump on all that milk.

Mapendo drinks water in March.

I visited Mapendo in Goma the week after her exam just to check on how things were going. The little gorilla avoided me.

Most small gorilla orphans can be distracted with a tiny bit of food or the offer of a bottle when it comes time for an injection. This strategy had worked well for Magda the week before when she needed to give Mapendo her anesthetic. A quick poke with a needle is easier than a dart . . . but the gorillas remember who stuck them. No doubt I reminded Mapendo of Magda: we're both white women with brown hair and when we visit the orphans we wear similar gear — masks, gloves and gray coveralls.

Jacques suggested we humans sit on the ground, which made a big difference. Mapendo strutted around a bit and climbed briefly on her tripod. Then she sat down in the shade next to one of her caretakers who plucked bits of clover from the grass for her to eat.

When the other caretaker crossed the enclosure to the night house to get her a bottle of water, Mapendo ran like lightning to beat him to the door and nearly succeeded. She drank the water as if it were an enormous treat.

I left feeling pleased to see Mapendo thriving, but sad that her future is so uncertain.

[Rwanda, March 31, 2008. Pictures: Dr. Lucy Spelman/MGVP]

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