Gorillas on the rise

As numbers increase in their strongholds, what if they run out of room?

- Patrick Greenfield

It is sunrise on Mount Muhabura, an inactive volcano on the Ugandan-Rwandan border, and Dr Benard Ssebide is in a rush to find a family of mountain gorillas before the tourists arrive.

A mass of ferns, vines and thistles encroaches on the path, and the guides hack through brambles with machetes. Above, the forest whistles in the wind, glowing in the morning light.

“The higher you go, the more the mountain pushes back,” Ssebide said, pausing for breath. After nearly 45 minutes, a ranger spots patches of flattened grass and large piles of fresh, dark green dung. Then the forest suddenly opens up to nine mountain gorillas - the Nyakagezi family - having their breakfast in a clearing.

The enormous silverback munches his way through a thistle, throwing his visitors an indifferent glance. Nearby, a three-year-old juvenile swings on a vine watched by its mother. An adolescent male tugs at a wild blackberry, carefully picking off leaves to eat and grunting with satisfaction.

The Virunga mountains, which range over the border region of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is one of two remaining homes for this endangered gorilla subspecies, identifiable by their thick fur and stocky frames that help them withstand the harsh conditions.

In the 1970s and 80s, barely 250 mountain gorillas were left, and naturalists feared extinction was close, as expanding agricultural frontiers and logging devoured their habitat. But decades of intense conservation efforts - through war and the 1994 Rwandan genocide - have worked.

Population numbers topped 1,000 in 2018 and mountain gorillas were downgraded from critically endangered to endangered by conservation authorities. Next year, an updated count is expected to show another increase. But it has come at an enormous cost in money and human life, and nobody who works with the animals is certain of their future.