Tshiaberimu

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 12 2008 | By: tshiaberimu

Hello, this is Jean Claude. Thank you for all your messages following the second gorilla death at Mt Tshiaberimu.

I have been working in conservation since 1995, yet I have never before experienced such difficult times. The work at Mt Tshiaberimu has not been at all easy recently. I have worked through periods of insecurity, I have received death threats, the Tshiaberimu sector has been attacked, members of the team have lost their lives and others have been wounded …. and now, after everything, the gorillas are sick.     

 This is enough to dishearten us, but what would happen to my friends the gorillas if we gave up?  

Since May 2007 I have not slept well. The attack on May 20 2007 threatened the gorillas and the project’s staff and for many months the future of the project and the safety of the gorillas and staff rested on my shoulders. (This is a picture of my colleague Vhosi, in hospital after the attack).  

The situation settled in January 2008, but in the meantime we lost a baby gorilla - killed accidently during an interaction between two silverbacks (the photo here is of the baby’s body). In February 2008 we lived through the death of a female gorilla. The gorilla had shown no signs of illness so her death came as a great shock to us all. The  autopsy revealed that she had an obstruction of the intestine but it was not clear why she died. While we were working heard to seek the true cause of death and protect the remaining gorillas, tragedy struck again and on May 10 a second female gorilla was found dead - just 10 days before the commemoration of the attack at Mt Tshiaberimu a year before. 

These tragic events have struck Mt Tshiaberimu after 10 years of successful conservation and do not reflect the hard work of our team. A lot is needed for us to continue our work. I think we need to improve our logistics; we need an all terrain vehicle for the rapid deployment of patrols and rations; we need to improve telecommunications; and we need a laboratory to analyze field samples. 19 gorillas remain in the population.      

 Abandoning the gorillas is sacrificing their survival.