![]() They range widely and are much more difficult to track, habituate and monitor than mountain gorillas, particularly because they are naturally wary of humans, given their long history of being hunted.īecause of the fearful and elusive nature of the western lowland gorillas, it was unclear whether the successes in preserving the mountain gorillas could translate to this species. Photo: Chris WhittierUnlike the mountain gorillas, which live in national parks that can be walked in a day, lowland gorillas inhabit the vast Congo River basin, an area larger than the state of Alaska. Huge areas of forests are being cut down to get all the ingredients that go into our cellphones and other electronics, as well as our hardwood furniture.”Ī four-day-old mountain gorilla with its mother. “And even within protected national parks, they’re living in places where there’s a lot of logging and mining. Lowland gorillas are also targets for bush-meat hunters, says Whittier. Ebola alone is estimated to have killed about one-third of the western lowland gorilla population, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). An estimated 5,000 to 20,000 eastern lowland gorillas are left in the wild.ĭespite their large numbers, Whittier says the lowland gorilla subspecies are at enormous risk for extinction, partly because of disease. Western lowland gorillas, the kind found in zoos, number around 100,000 in the wild-100 times the number of mountain gorillas. Photo: Chris WhittierEven though the mountain gorillas are a conservation medicine success story, “the real challenge is how to apply that work to other gorilla, chimpanzee, orangutan and primate populations,” Whittier says.įor example, the populations of eastern and western lowland gorillas far outnumber Fossey’s beloved mountain gorillas. The Elusive Lowland GorillasĪ family on the move. To reduce the risk of disease transmission between people and gorillas, Gorilla Doctors organizes annual health screenings, vaccination clinics and follow-up health care for the hundreds of rangers, trackers, researchers and others who routinely share the animals’ habitat. That’s partly why Fossey was a staunch opponent of gorilla tourism for years. Felicia Nutter, V93, an infectious disease and global health specialist at Cummings School who also worked for Gorilla Doctors (and is married to Whittier), was a co-author of the study.īecause gorillas have no natural immunity-and share 98.5 percent of their genes with humans-they are susceptible to our diseases, such as the flu and measles. Gorilla populations that received neither care nor protection declined 2 percent. Photo: Chris WhittierA study published in PLOS One in 2011 found that gorilla populations that received veterinary care in addition to protection from poachers grew by 4 percent, while the groups that had anti-poaching protection but no veterinary care expanded by 2 percent. Drayer Wildlife Health Center at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.)īwenge, a young silverback mountain gorilla, surveys his surroundings from atop Mount Visoke, an extinct volcano in Rwanda. (That program now operates as Gorilla Doctors, a partnership between the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project and the Karen C. ![]() student in population medicine at North Carolina State and then as a staff veterinarian from 2001 to 2006. “Because of the history of all those partners, you can actually distinguish the gorillas in that overall population that haven’t had veterinary care and quantify how much a difference veterinary care has made,” says Whittier, who worked with the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project first as a Ph.D. They treat gorillas’ health problems, ward off poachers, conduct behavioral research and work with the locals to safeguard the animals and their habitats. Wildlife veterinarians, staff at four national parks, ecotourism operators and other nongovernmental partners work together to monitor the mountain gorilla population in the Virunga Mountains and Bwindi Forest in east central Africa. But the few will probably “be just fine,” largely because veterinary care is now a mainstay in their peaceable kingdom, says Chris Whittier, V97, who has treated gorillas in six national parks in Africa.įossey’s work paved the way for the creation of organizations like the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project so that veterinarians, including Whittier, director of the master’s program in conservation medicine at Cummings School, can continue to protect the endangered species. Only about 900 mountain gorillas-the animals protected by Dian Fossey of Gorillas in the Mist fame-remain in the wild.
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