dedicated to keeping the world’s 1000
mountain gorillas from going extinct.
The NGO serves the health needs of
the animals living in this forest, as
well as those inhabiting the nearby
Virunga Massif: three contiguous
national parks spanning the border-
lands of Uganda, Rwanda and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Denstedt, 31, joined the team
in 2017, three years after earning a
doctorate in veterinary medicine
from the Ontario Veterinary Col-
lege at the University of Guelph. In
bet ween, she treated animals at an
emergency clinic – but she felt drawn
to more natural environs than the
sterile spaces where city vets work.
“I’ve always been passionate about
wildlife medicine,” she says. “I like
work i ng w it h people’s pets, but it
was not the difference I wanted to
make for the world.”THE ANIMAL HABITATSwhere Go-
rilla Doctors work are surround-
ed by some of the highest rural
human-population densities on the
planet. And people, as it turns out, (PREVIOUS SPREAD, LEFT) ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; (PREVIOUS SPREAD, RIGHT) ANDREY GUDKOV/ALAMY STOCK PHOTOMountain gorillas tend to move
around a lot, so it’s not always easy
to find them, and this was the team’s
second day on Buzinza’s trail. The
doctors had spent all of the previous
morning and afternoon tracking the
gorilla’s family, only to have Buzin-
za scamper into a treetop when they
finally spotted her. She stayed there
until nightfall – too late and too dark
for an intervention.
The team was luckier the next day,
however. They had to push through
the forest for only a few minutes be-
fore coming upon Buzinza and the rest
of her family – nearly 20 gorillas in all- gathered in a small clearing. She was
on the ground eating leaves while her
three year old clung to her back.
Denstedt was nervous approach-
ing the gorillas. She always is. “You
just have to cross your fingers that
it’s going to go well, but be prepared
for the unknown,” she says. “I always
hope I can do a good job and not let
my team down.”
Gorilla Doctors is an international
group of about 25 wildlife veterinar-
ians, biologists and support staff
READER’S DIGESTO
n an early January morning in 2018, Emily
Denstedt and her fellow Gorilla Doctors
trekked single file into the thick fern and
vines of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable
Forest. They were searching for Buzinza, the
matriarch of the Rushegura mountain gorilla group,
because they feared she had broken her arm.26 Augus t 2019