42 SMITHSONIAN | April 2020
ods of both fl ood and drought.
Finally, human confl icts in and
around gorilla habitat pose a threat
to the animals, particularly in DRC,
a country in the midst of an inter-
minable civil war. “Poor people are
drawn into insurgent militias for
economic reasons,” says Seguya.
“They just want a better life. But
nobody wants to have the risk of a
bullet hanging over their heads. Pro-
viding opportunities to otherwise
desperate park-side communities,
opportunities beyond criminality,
insurgency, charcoal production
and endangered species traffi cking,
is our goal in eastern Congo.”
It might be too much to hope that
the prospect of aiding mountain
gorillas can pacify rebel groups in
DRC. But stranger things have hap-
pened. Mountain gorillas have mag-
ic. People from around the world go
to Africa specifi cally to see the mag-
nifi cent animals. The experience is
one of the most profound of their
lives. It certainly was for me.
Watching a mountain gorilla fam-
ily, the fi rst thing that strikes you is
how “human” they are. The massive
silverback reclines and allows his kids
to jump on him. Mothers nurse their
infants, stroking their heads and groom-
ing their hair. Adolescent males wrestle,
screeching, laughing and chasing each
other. Over 98 percent of the DNA in hu-
man beings and gorillas is identical—in
evolutionary terms, we are cousins.
I once watched a female mountain
gorilla spend hours trying to teach her
infant how to walk. She held the little
ape’s arms and walked backward. I once
witnessed an old silverback simply bare
his impressive teeth to an intruder, a
blackback apparently on the hunt for a
mate, and the younger gorilla immedi-
ately turned tail.
The more time I spent with gorillas, the more I wondered
about the meaning of being human. Although we greatly
enjoy and repeatedly abuse our titular position at the top of
the animal kingdom, human beings are often no more kind,
caring or generous than gorillas. Mother gorillas coddle and
protect their babies just like humans. Silverbacks are excep-
tionally peaceful beasts (although terrifying, sometimes fatalsnares have been removed and consequent-
ly poaching has been reduced.”
Seguya says park rangers used to be the
front line in protecting the gorillas, but
now this duty is shared with the villages.
“Because the residents are now working
with us, rather than against us, information
about prohibited activities is passed onto
authorities.” Now the poachers, not the go-
rillas, threaten livelihoods.
Other challenges have arisen, though.
Ecotourism itself is not without risk, be-
cause people can pass infectious diseases
to mountain gorillas. As a result, visitors
are asked to wear a surgical mask, keep at
least 23 feet away from mountain gorillas,
and limit visits to one hour. Anyone not
wearing a mask must keep at least 32 feet
away. Meanwhile, researchers also wor-
ry about the impact of climate change on
mountain gorilla habitat, which, accord-
ing to one recent study, is “likely to be in
a worse situation than it is currently if ap-
propriate mitigation and adaptation are
not implemented.” Such measures would
include ecosystem restoration, fi re man-
agement, and water management for peri-
September 1973 : Cousins
The biology of
of our fellow primate, and its plight, have
always concerned this magazine. First (above)
we covered what scientists were learning
about the maternal instincts of lowland
gorillas and, by extrapolation, mountain
gorillas. A 1985 profi le of the biologist Russ
Mittermeier—the “primate protector”—warned
that “fewer than 400” mountain gorillas
remained in the wild. In 2005, we traipsed
through a Central African forest with the
primatologist and anti-poaching activist
David Greer, who had studied mountain
gorillas in Rwanda. “I felt someone had to
be with them every day to make sure they
weren’t harmed,” he said. Two years later,
a story based in Congo about rebel militia
attacks on mountain gorillas estimated the
wild population at 750 and suggested their
future “depends on the courage of the people
who protect them.”
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TO SEE MORE of Neil Ever Osborne’s mountain gorilla
photographs, go to: Smithsonianmag.com/gorillas