Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ATTENBOROUGH
Gripped around the wrist by a snare, her hand the size of a child’s, the whimpering the young gorilla made as she hung terrified from a branch, separated from her family, was childlike, too.
So upset were the rangers who found her in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park that they cried as well.
Vet Dr Jean Bosco Noheli, 38, one of the Gorilla Doctors who monitor the mountain gorillas across Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, said: “The rangers cried when they found this infant.
“She was hanging, a baby on her own struggling to get free, calling for help.
“We released her and held a small stretcher for her to fall on to, then carried her to her family.”
The three-and-a-half-year-old gorilla survived, but the incident highlights the threat faced by these endangered creatures in the Virunga mountains.
She had been strung up after skipping into one of the looped traps laid by locals, who, trapped themselves by poverty, capture bush animals such as antelope for food. Tragically, the gorillas can fall prey instead.
Yesterday, we reported on the conservation success story of Rwanda’s mountain gorillas, 40 years after they featured on David Attenborough’s Life on Earth.
After his breathtaking film, the profile of the gorillas soared. The introduction of sensitive eco-tourism, daily monitoring and veterinary care has led to an increase in numbers, from fewer than 250 to more than 1,000. They are still endangered, but not critically so.
Yet these pictures illustrate the dangers faced by the gorillas, many descended from the ones Attenborough met.
The snares are generally tied to a bamboo pole, the loop hidden on the ground among leaves, rigged up to a twig which acts as a trigger once it is stepped on.
The young gorilla we heard of was released with no harm done. Left any longer and her attempts to get free could have resulted in a wound, followed by infection, which may have led to amputation to avoid a slow, painful death.
Dr Noheli says: “I have carried out many amputations. Afterwards, females can live a fairly normal life, but silverbacks can’t fight and lead their group, and then they become lone.
“Living alone, they waste the chance to reproduce.”
Just before we fly home, we get news that Gorilla Doctors on the Ugandan side of the same forest have found a 20-year-old female gorilla in a snare.
In the heartbreaking photos, she appears completely immobile, rendered so by shock or pain, or both. Thankfully, she too was freed quickly, unharmed.
She was rescued thanks to the fact the apes are so closely monitored. Antipoaching teams patrol the forest every day, removing snares in an endless fight to avoid heartbreaking scenes like these. Last year, around 600 were removed, and because of their unrelenting efforts