Dr. Lucy Spellman explains the plan for gorilla check-ups
Forgive me for being Gorilla-Crazy and writing yet another blog about these creatures, but anyone who has completed a gorilla trek understands the obsession and concern. One issue: We make them sick.
As gorillas share 97.7% of our genes, it is easy for pathogens to pass from us to them. These days, humans spend a lot of time in close proximity to the 740 remaining Mountain Gorillas. As the gorilla tourism industry continues to grow and thrive, researchers, trackers, tourists, guides, porters (and even poachers) crawl closer and closer. Though the industry promotes conservation and brings income to communities, it also brings illness to gorillas. The animals have little resistance to diseases we may carry (including scabies, polio, influenza, measles, and pneumonia), and when one gorilla picks up something, it can spread to an entire troupe, potentially leading to death.
The Mountain Gorilla Vet Project (MGVP) aims to alleviate these symptoms of the human invasion. The vets and researchers cover most of the home of the Mountain Gorillas -- the Virunga Mountains, in Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo -- with a headquarters in Ruhengeri, Rwanda. Our traveling group was fortunate enough to visit the headquarters and learn directly from Dr. Lucy Spellman. There is a lot to learn about the process of gorilla healing!
The first step is identifying the disease, which is no easy task. Staff must climb the mountain and find gorilla saliva samples. Back at the lab, they aim to not only ID the disease, but find out where it originated. It might be bacteria in the forest from humans, or mites from a farmer's fields. Once they've made a diagnosis, the vets are then allowed to carefully treat the gorillas in the park. But prevention is the best medicine.