by Terry Shiels
January 22, 2009
Page 1 : In Search of the Cross River Gorilla
We drove all day Sunday to the highlands of Northern Cameroon on the Nigerian border to track the rare and endangered Cross River Gorilla. There are fewer than 300 of these primates left on Earth. Gathering reliable and accurate data is critical to the survival of this species.
My travel companion on this expedition is Dr. Rich Bergl, Curator of Conservation and Research for the North Carolina Zoo. We are joined by Aaron Nicholas, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Takamande-Mone Landscape Project at the Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary in the Kagwene Mountains. Monday morning early, we depart the tiny village of Njikwa for a five-hour trek to the mountain sanctuary of these rare and secretive primates.
They are called Cross River Gorillas because they live near the headwaters of the Cross River on the border of Cameroon and Nigeria. Our group is made up of close to three dozen people including the WCS team, trackers (including Emmanuel Aseke), conservationists from various organizations and a German TV crew. Dr. Bergl's purpose here is to teach a "how to" workshop on using a handheld computer and a software program called CyberTracker. The device is a combination GPS and computer, with the CyberTracker software customized to make storing data about gorilla sightings consistent and uniform so that it can be useful for protecting these gorillas once the data is compiled and aggregated. My purpose here is to document the gorilla tracking expedition for our ZooFilez TV series and to record on video how research data is collected using CyberTracker. With a little luck I hope also to become the first TV professional to get footage of a Crossland Gorilla in the wild.
Our camp is spartan, but with some amenities. A few simple mud brick buildings, a kitchen, bathhouse and two bunkhouses make up this research outpost. I have a small portable solar charging station to recharge camera batteries. On the first day at camp the group learns how to use CyberTracker, then ventures out into the forest to test their new skills. I stay in camp to interview Aaron, the WCS project director.
The next day we head out to track gorillas and to capture research data. Our guide, a former hunter turned conservation tracker, is one of the best in the business. He quickly finds feeding signs and other clues that lead us closer to the gorilla family. We follow through rugged terrain that would discourage the casual hiker. But we are on a conservation mission, so we press on. By noon we come across a group of gorilla nests formed by branches padded with a bed of leaves. This is where they slept two nights prior. By counting the nests we now know their are five gorillas in this troupe.
I carefully document with my TV camera all signs of gorilla life that our tracker finds, especially this place where they recently slept. Next we venture on to find where they rested the next night. Our tracker says they may be as close as one kilometer from one nest site to the next, so we are as silent as possible. If they are close, we don't want to alert them and scare them away. By 2:00 pm we have found their most recent nests. White hairs let us know where the silverback slept. He is the "big man" of the troupe. As the leader and dominant male, it is his job to protect the family. There are many threats to these primates including encroachment of habitat and poaching. The Cross River Gorilla has good reason to fear humans. It is man, a close genetic relative, who has forced these secretive primates into small disconnected islands of mountain forests and threatened their very survival as a species.
But they have nothing to fear from this small group of conservationists. We only hope to learn more about these creatures in order to improve their chances of survival. Dr. Bergl's genetic research has used DNA from fecal matter to show how hardy these remaining gorillas can be. It was feared that the small islands of forests that these groups occupy would prohibit interbreeding of geographically separated troupes. But. DNA evidence shows that interbreeding across relatively long distances is common. This assures the genetic diversity necessary for a healthy population.
After tracking the gorillas for a couple more hours we head back to camp. We don't want to be caught in the forest after dark. Our trackers note where we last saw clues of gorilla feeding. We will resume our search here in the morning. Back at camp our cook has prepared a traditional Cameroonian dinner of rice with a palm oil and pepper sauce covered with fish. After a long day in the forest I am grateful for this hearty meal.
Encountering the Cross River Gorilla
by Terry Shiels
January 22, 2009
Page 2 : A Very Close Encounter
I rise before first light so that I can capture a time lapse sequence of an African red sky sunrise with my high-definition TV camera. After breakfast, we set out once more to find our family of primates. We are fortunate. They have not traveled far. Our guides have found evidence that they have been feeding very close by. We proceed quietly with our eyes, our ears and even our noses at a heightened state of alert.
Suddenly the silence is broken by a thunderous gorilla vocalization. We freeze. The sound of rapid chest thumping is followed by another series of loud gorilla sounds. My camera is on my shoulder as our guide points. The silverback is there. I start shooting and capture a few seconds of the big male through the trees. Then he vanishes as quickly as he appeared. We are silent and still. Then the massive silverback is charging us with frightening yells. He is trying to scare us and it is working well! I am so petrified that I miss the opportunity to record another image, but I do record his screams which are strong evidence that the big guy was less than half a football field away. A moment later he is gone.
Our guides assure us we won't see this family of gorillas again today. But they have influenced my life forever. I turn the camera back on to record interviews from our group to document our encounter. Dr. Bergl's testimony is that, in a decade of gorilla research, this is his closest encounter with these creatures that he has faithfully studied. I am grateful to be the first broadcast professional to capture even a few frames of a Cross River Gorilla on video.
Tomorrow we head down the mountain and begin the long journey home. We will return to North Carolina forever changed by what we have experienced in Africa, so many miles from home.
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