Quest: Mountain Gorillas: Discovery Channel

Update on Mushya

In recent weeks, Mushya has taken me on a roller coaster ride. I've been visiting Isabukuru Group regularly to check on him and his mother, Icyizere. He's looked better each time, yet his fragile condition has worried me.

Only now, five weeks after treatment, am I convinced that he'll survive, at least in the short term. The reason: Icyizere. She is strong and active — and producing more milk. None of us imagined that one dose of ivermectin would make such a difference, especially since we hadn't believed that she herself was ill. Mushya had been our target.

Mushya: Lab Work and Follow-Up

After a brief break for lunch, Magda, Jean Felix and I met back in the lab to evaluate Mushya’s case. We spent the next five hours doing all we could to process and run the gorillas’ samples, but we ran out of energy before we could finish. I think we also felt a bit deflated when we didn’t find mites in the hair or skin samples.

But we did discover one new, important fact: Icyizere was anemic, too, although not as severely as Mushya. This meant the mother's health could also be a factor, something we hadn't suspected.

Hands-on With Icyizere and Mushya

Magda, Jean Felix and I met to map out our intervention plan for Mushya. We would anesthetize only the mother to start with, then evaluate the infant as quickly as possible. I preferred not to anesthetize him unless absolutely necessary. His pale mucous membranes worried me. We couldn't draw many conclusions from a simple skin scraping, however. We'd need to perform as complete a work-up as possible. Our goal would be to collect as many routine samples from Mushya as possible, including blood, urine, feces and a skin biopsy.

Snares and Scares

I'd nearly finished my routine health check in Pablo Group when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket, making me jump. It was Jean Felix. We usually text each other in order not to disturb the gorillas, so I knew right away there must be a problem.

Tierra's Summer Project: Gorilla Saliva

For the past two months, we've been working out ways to collect and store saliva from gorillas. In the future, we plan to test these samples for diseases, especially the viruses that cause respiratory illness. This study has been a good idea in our heads for some time. Thanks to veterinary student Tierra Wilson, it's finally under way. Tierra not only designed the research project, she found her own funding to come to Rwanda and run it!

Ururabo Five Days Later

Elisabeth and I trekked up to Susa Group again the morning after the intervention for Ururabo and her sick baby. Magda and Jean Felix had gone to Kigali for an important meeting on the topic of gorilla visitation rules, a timely subject. My job today was not only to check on our patient but to send regular updates by phone text to all those who'd helped yesterday. Everyone wanted and deserved to know the outcome.

Ururabo's Baby: The Intervention

The gorillas had moved into a bamboo thicket by the time we were ready to treat Ururabo's infant. The dense vegetation offered plenty of good hiding places for darting, but the trackers felt the place wasn't safe enough for an intervention, especially given a 39-member group that includes five silverbacks. As they explained, the tall stalks give aggressive gorillas more confidence. We'd be safer in a clear area, where the four trackers could more easily surround the vet team and scare away any challengers.

Ururabo's Baby Is Very Sick

Ururabo's baby seemed to recover completely after his two-day episode of runny nose and soft cough. We'd been checking him daily, along with all of the mothers and infants. Magda had seen him the day before, and he'd looked normal compared to the infants of both Ruvumu and Rwandarushya, who were now coughing along with their mothers. Dufatayne had recovered and her baby had yet to show any symptoms. When I arrived to check on the group, the mothers and infants were again the priority.

Coughing and Sneezing in Susa Group Continued

On the sixth day of the respiratory outbreak it was my turn to visit Susa Group. The coughs from the sick silverbacks reverberated through the forest. Kurira had barely moved his family from where they'd foraged the day before. Juveniles and infants played — again, as if nothing were wrong.

After the Surgery: Disorientation

  After Umoja's successful surgery, his mother, Nyiramurema, headed downhill in the wrong direction as she tried to shake the anesthesia. The trackers quickly fanned out around her, forming a semi-circle to encourage her to reverse direction.