Gorilla gazette - Issue 3

 

Welcome to Gorilla gazette!

Postings from the gorilla inhabitants of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, in Western Uganda.

 Issue 3: October 2021

Well, hello. I am Busingye. As Kakukojo told you last time, he asked me to write this issue of the Gorilla gazette. He lives in the northern part of Bwindi and I live in the southern part. It took him a little while to get in touch about it, and as you saw in the film clip in the last issue, I like to spend time sitting around and eating, and time sort of went by…

My family is named after me . The name, Busingye, means ‘Peace’. My wife is Nyanduru. She’s sitting with me in this picture. 

The  mountain gorillas in Bwindi, who numbered 459 (out of about 1,000 in the world) when we were last counted in 2018, are living in 50 families or groups. This means that the average size of a family is about 10. Thirteen solitary males were also counted. These are males who have been challenged as the family silverback and defeated by a younger male and kicked out. It is not a good idea to go near them as they can be very bad-tempered and aggressive. I always steer very clear if I come across one…

As you can see from this picture the forest can be very dense. Of the 50 families, 30 live deep in the forest with minimum contact with human beings, as we are very like you human beings and may catch your diseases. Indeed, there was news that some lowland gorillas, which can be kept in captivity and were in a zoo in the US, were infected with COVID-19 during the last year. The other 20 families, like mine, are “habituated”, that means they are made accustomed to having people come to see them.

When people didn’t come to see us during the pandemic, some of my friends actually decided to go to try to find out what had happened to them. Boy, did they get into trouble when the people living in the nearby village saw them and had to shoo them back into the forest again. 

Each family has its own territory. We keep moving as we like to eat lush, fresh leaves which we pull off the branches and sometimes we might also try some ants. But we are mainly vegetarian. As you can imagine, a family of gorillas can easily eat all the nicest leaves in a short period of time, which is why we move around. This means that the trackers who keep an eye on us and  provide information to the rangers as to where we are, have to go each morning to the place they last saw us the evening before and then follow our tracks.

I know that many of you have been helping the women in the village of Nkuringo, by buying them water tanks and sewing machines. They have asked me to thank you and to say that they have been very busy making skirts and outfits on the sewing machines that have arrived. This is a picture of Sabina wearing her new dress that she made. Together with 15 other women she was given a hen, bought with money raised from entertaining the tourists at one of the lodges. It will mean that they and their families will have eggs, some of which will be raised as chicks.

Please continue to support Commat in helping the villagers in Nkuringo, who help us. 

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For additional options please contact us directly at gorillas@commat.org