or ultrasounds – technolog y that
Rwandans are not usually trained
to use – Denstedt gets called in.
THE EVENTS LEADINGto the deci-
sion to treat Buzinza began a week
before the team headed into the for-
est to find her. The trackers respon-
sible for monitoring the Rushegura
gorilla group noticed that Buzinza
hadn’t used her right arm for sever-
al days. “We were worried that she
might have a fracture,” Denstedt
said, “because gorillas sometimes
fall from trees.”
Normally such an injury wouldn’t
warrant an intervention – a human
didn’t break Buzinza’s arm, nor was
the injury necessarily life-threaten-
ing. Still, Buzinza seemed to be get-
ting worse, and the team suspected
something else might be wrong. If
Buzinza died, chances are her baby
would die, too, especially if it was
still nursing.
Denstedt and Dr Mike Cran-
field, Gorilla Doctors’ co-director
at the time, gathered all the medical
supplies they might need to tend to
Buzinza’s arm, including orthopae-
dic equipment for potential sur-
gery. They waited a week for a suit-
case-sized portable X-ray machine
to be delivered from the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, then assem-
bled a team that also included two
Ugandan field veterinarians, a vet-
erinary student, a park warden and
a small group of trackers and porters.
When they found Buzinza and her
baby on that second day of search-
ing, the team slowly unpacked their
gear. One of the field veterinari-
ans, Dr Fred Nizey imana, loaded a
pin k-tailed anaesthesia dart into an
air pistol and carefully crept toward
Buzinza using two of the porters as
cover. The gorillas of Bwindi have
learned to recognise t he dar t g uns,
so vets must remain hidden until
they are within range. Even gorillas
hate to get their shots.
Buzinza f linched when the dart hither. She clamoured away but went
down quickly, slumping onto the for-
est f loor. At first, the team feared she
might roll into a nearby stream and
dreaded having to rescue her from
drowning, but Buzinza grew still. Her
baby seemed unperturbed by both its
mother’s sudden slumber and the
humans who emerged from the trees.
The youngster quietly watched the
masked-and-gloved doctors for a few
minutes before getting bored and
wandering off.
This was fortunate, Denstedt says.BABY GORILLAS OFTEN
SCREAM WHEN THEIR
MOTHERS GO UNDER,
AND THIS CAN DISTRESS
THE WHOLE GROUP(TOP) COURTESY OF DR. EMILY DENSTEDT; (BOTTOM) SKYLER BISHOP28 Augus t 2019
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