Gorillas in the Mist (55 page)

I don’t like being cranky, but sometimes I can’t help myself. Anyway, on the twenty-second a park guard came up with a note from
ORTPN
demanding
that I show up in Kigali to see the director before noon on the twenty-third. I contacted Kigali by radio to explain that I couldn’t walk down the mountain because of spider bites. I was told “it” was a matter too serious to be discussed on the radio and to “be there or else.” I assume “it” had to do with the Spanish couple, but at any rate I didn’t go. I await the next missile with a bit of trepidation. Thank heaven for spider bites!

Nearly three weeks ago, I had found four little bites, almost in the shape of a small dog’s bite, on the upper inside of my left leg. I didn’t think anything of them until they began to itch like crazy, then began to ooze pus horribly, then hundreds of small bumps appeared all over the thigh and also began to ooze. Lord, what a mess, and what a place to try to treat! I changed from jeans to skirt to be able to pour medicine on more easily. Finally the blisters began to dry up, leaving big, fungus-looking scabs, but now similar “things” are beginning on both hips. Well, believe it or not, I can’t thank the spider, or whatever it was, enough, because the bites saved me a trip to Kigali.

Dian remained deeply suspicious of the Spanish invasion and apprehensive of what it might portend. In a letter to the International Primate Protection League she wrote:

“These two aren’t doing what I call research. From what the trackers tell me, they are just interested in what gorillas eat and other things that would be useful for a zoo…. As you know, in the past, several park officials were involved in the capture of young mountain gorillas for sale in Europe…. I don’t encounter these Spaniards at all; they keep out of my way for sure; but I still know everything they do. Meanwhile I have told Vatiri and the other men to keep a sharp watch on all gorilla groups for any sign of poacher interest.”

The ominous presence of the zoo technicians did nothing to soothe Dian’s growing irascibility, nor did the return of Watts and the departure of Jan Rafert. As January ended, she vented some of her peevishness in a letter to Ian Redmond:

“I hear from my Africans that Bill Weber is back from the States to work below. To my knowledge he hasn’t been up here, but I now have virtually nothing to do with the lower part of this camp where the researchers live since the only nice guy, Jan Rafert, had to leave…. I see Watts at most five minutes every morning when the trekkers go out with him, and that’s about five minutes too long. When Jan left on January 18, I asked the Africans whom he reminded them of. To a man they first named you, and then Ric Elliot and then Tim White. So, you see, it can’t just be me who evaluates people the wrong/right way.

“The holiday season passed relatively smoothly, but one day my ravens prompted me to ask Mukera and Nemeye to follow their squawks, and sure enough, they found a Twa poacher just across the creek and were able to get his bow and arrows. Cheeky bloke!

“Let me give you the 1984 summary for the Digit Fund: 2,264 traps cut down … 18 animals (bushbuck, duiker, hyrax, porcupine) released from traps alive; 7 poachers caught and imprisoned; none of the gorillas monitored from Karisoke were
harmed by poachers. But I don’t like the handwriting on the wall—refer to Spain, below…. It is now possible to walk by Digit’s grave without the same, horrid, black aching void; for he alone has made all of the above possible, but how I wish that he, Uncle Bert, Macho, and Kweli were still on this earth propagating their kind, stripping thistles, pulling gallium vines off the old hagenia trees, sunning and purring on the rare days, and even shivering and steaming on the long rainy days. They so much belong here, instead of us humans.

“I learn from Shirley McGreal that someone in camp is getting grants to supply information on the feeding and management of mountain gorillas in captivity…. It was also brought up at the Madrid International Union for the Conservation of Nature conference that this year mountain gorillas will definitely be exported for ’survival’s sake.’ From another source I learn that Spain is going to get them from Rwanda.

“I feel very paranoid, yet this same kind of preparation happened in the case of the attempted capture of Kweli…. I am spending an awful lot of Digit Fund money just on keeping tabs on things down below.

“Now, I know you don’t like people talk, but please tell me if you have any idea what is going on between Watts, Barnes, Jensen, and Harcourt, etc. There is a tremendous amount of correspondence between them, but on the soul of Digit, I haven’t opened a single letter. I cannot really lose my temper anymore cause it makes my heart pound too much but … I think it is really shitty how J.P., Harcourt, V-Ws, and now Watts are turning me into a real monster.”

On January 28, Dian received a letter from an American zoologist who had just visited the park’s tourist-habituated gorillas and had been disturbed by the experience. “I was surprised at how blasé they were at having us so close by—is it good for them to be that habituated, I wonder … do you approve of the gorilla visits from the public? Is it ’sacrificing’ those groups for the publicity and revenue? Does it jeopardize their safety?”

Dian’s reply provides a fair and reasoned assessment of how she viewed gorilla tourism:

“I’ve met quite a few tourists who were absolutely
thrilled
with their contacts with the habituated groups and were returning home with a ‘glow’ in their hearts for the magnificence and dignity of the gorillas.

“To answer your specific questions, I approve of gorilla visits by the public as long as they are properly controlled. You have absolutely no idea what gorilla ‘visits’ were like before the past two to three years … literally hordes of people—twenty at a time—pushing and paying their way into the park using any African available as a guide. Because of the noise and quantities of people, my own study groups were shattered and retreated into poacher-endangered areas in Zaire or on the highest slopes of Karisimbi. Food wrappings, tins, and even Tampax littered the trails, but I’ll leave out the even more gruesome details of the early tourist days. It is not good to dwell on the past.

“… The Rwandan government is absolutely thrilled over this badly needed source of revenue for their truly poor country. Gorilla tourism is growing beyond their highest dreams,
BUT
, no one is thinking about the goose that laid the golden egg….

“By concentrating on tourism, salaries for the expatriates, cars, staff housing, etc., the Mountain Gorilla Project has almost, not quite, neglected its responsibilities toward safeguarding the remaining gorillas in the Virungas. Yet if it were not for the
M.G.P.
, you, and several hundred others, would never have had the privilege of meeting these extraordinary animals. So it would hardly be fair of me to say that they are all wrong and I am all right.

“Nevertheless, far away from the fanlight [sic] my Digit Patrols keep on working….
None
of the gorillas being monitored by the Digit Fund were harmed or injured in any way by poachers during 1984, because of constant surveillance by Karisoke patrols; but four were trapped in the area patrolled
by Mountain Gorilla Project. They actually lost eight gorillas to poachers last year, but of course the public won’t hear about it.

“As an example of the problems here, three nights ago poachers’ dogs killed a magnificent old bushbuck who had been King of the Forest long before any of us came around. He probably sired half the few remaining bushbucks around Visoke until these dogs brought him down by his testicles. Subsequently we have been spending many patrol hours trying to find these dogs, for this is the fifth bushbuck they have killed in the last two months. This kind of thing doesn’t attract tourist or grant money, but it is what my work is all about—
active
conservation.”

By mid-February, when she wrote to her old friend Glenn Hausfater, now living in Minnesota, she was in a better mood:

“People continue to come and go at Karisoke, some helpful, some not. The majority of them are able to do good footwork, which I find next to impossible now. Their reports leave a lot to be desired, but this I can remedy with the help of the Africans—I have designed a neat check-sheet and map system that the trackers follow to every group religiously every day. It makes European observers almost superfluous. It goes without saying that my main purpose in life is keeping the Digit Fund antipoacher patrols going and training park guards for the gorilla guardian program….

“One last project is now well under way—one that I’ve wanted to do for years, unraveling the meanings of all the names of hills, streams, rivers, etc., within the Virungas. This is truly proving to be exacting work and the men relish it as much as I. I have roughly six hundred such names with great history behind them, most dating back to the early days of the Tutsi, but many still used by the Hutu, almost with reverence. It’s a constructive way for the old lady to spend her spare time. Needless to say, these work goals are slipped in between beating the Africans, starving them to death, or shooting at tourists! Would you believe, these stories are still flying hot and heavy down below.”

The campaign of calumny against her no longer bothered Dian excessively. In fact, now that the fund-granting organizations had cut her off and she could suffer no further financial damage, she could find a flicker of amusement in the fearsome reputation her enemies had given her.

However, when that reputation threatened her continuing residence in Rwanda, she was
not
amused. On March 5, with her current visa about to expire, she reluctantly and with considerable apprehension climbed down the mountain and headed for Kigali. Word had reached her a few days earlier from the American embassy that there was a possibility her visa would not be renewed at all. “Representations have been made that you ought to be excluded from Rwanda on the grounds that you have abused the country’s laws and hospitality.”

Dian went straight to the ambassador’s residence, where she was warmly received. After her return to camp she wrote to Deedee Blane, the ambassador’s wife, “I can’t thank both of you enough for all of your kindness and generosity. The five days in your company seemed like a five-star vacation. I only wish I hadn’t been so worried about the visa, as this gray cloud sure didn’t make me a very responsive houseguest.”

The gray cloud seems to have been dispelled largely because of lobbying by Ambassador Blane. His arguments must have been impressive, because not only did the government renew the visa, it did so for a period of six months. Dian became euphoric when she heard the news—somuch so that she managed to crash a borrowed car (her own combi had long been
hors de combat
for lack of money with which to repair it) with such gusto that she broke two ribs. When she returned, more-or-less triumphantly, to camp on March 10, it was in a litter carried by ten porters. Fortunately, the ribs had broken cleanly this time. They healed fairly quickly and without the agonizing complications she had endured in 1977.

Her relief at obtaining a six-month visa was immense. As she wrote to Stacey Coil, “I don’t believe I could have borne it
if they had told me to leave. The longer I work here, despite the fact that I cannot go into the field as often as I used to, I realize more and more just how important it is that I am here. Stacey, this is the only place where I belong.”

By late March, Mike Catsis had returned to England and had been replaced by a thirty-four-year-old American, Peter Clay. Dian’s feud with Watts was still being maintained, but had settled into a ritualized conflict without much animosity on either side.

On March 17, Watts resigned but brought a paper saying what a good fellow he is on the eighteenth. So I guess he stays.

Dian would probably have missed him if he’d gone. Clearly she did
not
miss the Spaniards, who departed on March 27.

SPICS GONE.
Thank God.

She did not relinquish her vigilance after their departure, being now convinced that an attempt would be made to kidnap one or more young gorillas from the Virungas.

Tiger’s illness remained a major preoccupation.

He is doing better, though I am inclined to worry about the effect on him of the rainy season, which will surely last another month. He is just behind my cabin now and I visited with him yesterday, which wasn’t easy with my two broken left ribs. He seems to be moving better and is perhaps perkier, but his chest wound hasn’t healed and he has a deep cough, but since I am lung-prone myself it is quite possible that I overreact to such symptoms. He continues hanging around back of camp, either because of my scintillating company or the big bamboo clump in my front yard. On the sly (because I won’t let anyone cut any living growth near camp) I have been taking him fresh bamboo shoots every day. Not enough to make him dependent on it, just enough to perk his spirits up a bit. I really believe he hangs around because he is lonely and knows this is a safe place where he can see/hear people every day.

Ziz, who was a runt and a whiner as a kid, has now turned into the King of the Mountain. He has acquired five new females, which is a record for even an experienced silver-back. I believe two came from Group 6, one from a fringe group, and Simba of course from Tiger. The influx of these new females into Group 5 led to a lot of fighting between them, so Ziz finally left Group 5, taking his harem with him. This leaves old Beethoven, the only silverback left in the group, with old Effie, his six daughters, two sons, and three grandchildren. If he meets up with another, stronger silver-back, it could mean the end of Group 5. Ziz is wearing out his little thing covering his five females. If there isn’t a gorilla baby boom it won’t be his fault. Ziz the whiz!

The other groups remain far, far away, and I just can’t get to anyone except Tiger. It is ever so frustrating after so many years of going out daily no matter how far the animals were roaming. I guess I shot my wad by overworking during the first twelve years here and in Zaire.