Gorillas in the Mist

by Farley Mowat

  “I like the schmaltzy parts of your letter. The visit to Karisoke was as helpful to me, personally and emotionally, as it seems to have been for you. You just have so much to offer, have made such a contribution toward gorilla conservation, and just deserve so much good, that I can’t help but want to try to get you into a comfortable position and see that some good things come your way…. With a little patience we can lick the bastards.”

  Dian now began to have some doubts about her professorial abilities. At the end of October she wrote Glenn, “If I can, as you state, get my travel expenses to Ithaca, a small amount of research funding, office space, secretarial help (you’re kidding!), and stationery, I believe I would be wiser to come to Cornell initially as an unsalaried visiting professor. In this manner I could test my abilities to cope once again with civilization…. If all goes well once the ‘adjustment’ period is over, then I could prove myself. I would also be free to finish the book and do a few lectures.

  “I can’t wait to get to the State Diner and have pictured it in my mind just so. I hope you can learn ’em how to fry breaded pork chops without tomato sauce gluck slopped over them, for that would run into the mashed potatoes and create a bus accident scene. I am drooling. And so onto another of my bad habits—MUSSELS! I crave them, and reckon there is something Freudian in it. The only kind I have thus far found in Kigali are tinned in Spain and have seaweed merde in their innards.

  “I now have a poacher’s dog in the front room with a bad, bad, bad foreleg from having been caught in a trap. I can’t bring myself to kill it as it is terribly sweet. I will feed it up, it is emaciated, and try to fix its wound and find a home for it. In addition to the dog the last patrol brought in eighty-eight traps.”

  Not only did Dian nurse the dog back to health, she persuaded Earl Haldiman, director of an ABC television crew who visited Karisoke early in December, to adopt the poor creature and smuggle it back to the United States. Poacher, as Haldiman named it, adjusted so well to California that she eventually became a television star in her own right.

  On the same day that Dian sent Poacher off to a new life, she received a letter from the chairman of the Neurobiology and Behavior section at Cornell:

  “The terms of your appointment will be from mid-March 1980 to mid-December 1980. You will be paid a salary of $13,500…. Your professional duties will be to give several public lectures in the spring and to teach a seminar on the Great Apes in the autumn. We believe this schedule will … provide you an opportunity to do the writing Glenn has told us you were anxious to do.” Dian was ecstatic.

  Christmas sure has come early this year! The times and place and everything are exactly right for me. Glenn is a miracle man!

  As the year approached its end, Dian’s health improved. On October 2 she had gone to the Ruhengeri hospital for an examination of her hip. X-rays revealed that she had neither sciatica nor cancer. The pain was being caused by compression of her fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae. Her friends, Drs. Vimont and Lolly Prescada, prescribed drugs and therapy that greatly reduced the pain, pending remedial treatment when she returned to the United States.

  Since Sholley’s departure in early August, the only other white person in camp had been Peter Veit. No vacancies had been filled pending Harcourt’s arrival, but once Dian decided against him she had moved quickly to make alternative arrangements through Dr. Ramon Rhine of the University of California. Rhine produced three research students eager to work at Karisoke. Dian was confident that at least one would be able to take charge in her absence. However, none could arrive until early in the new year, so she and Peter continued to soldier on alone. This was no hardship.

  Peter works better and better. I encourage him to work for his doctorate thesis and he spends all his time with the groups…. Life is really peaceful in camp; I don’t even yell at the Africans. I guess Fossil Fossey is getting marshmallowy.

  If there was a fly in the ointment, it was Jean-Pierre von der Becke, whom Dian had recommended to manage the AWLF gorilla project consortium. Following his arrival in Rwanda in early September, he had showered Dian with notes and letters fulsomely attesting to his enormous gratitude for her getting him his new job, and assuring her of his undying loyalty to her personally and to the cause of active gorilla conservation. But it was not long before his center of emotional gravity began to shift. By the end of October he had become an integral part of what Dian contemptuously referred to as the Parking Lot Gang, so called because its members spent much of their time around the tourist parking lot at the base of the mountain.

  The “gang” now included Monfort and von der Becke, together with Bill Weber and various other employees of the combined AWLF/FPS/WWF Mountain Gorilla Project. According to the reports from Dian’s intelligence network, their contributions to poacher control and gorilla protection amounted to virtually nothing, their time and energy being devoted almost exclusively to gorilla “tourism.” To assist in this enterprise they tried to hire trained trackers away from Karisoke, but with the exception of one whom Dian had fired for theft, these efforts were unsuccessful.

  Despite ORTPN’s guarantee that Karisoke’s gorillas would not be bothered by tourists, Group 5 continued to bear the brunt of such visitations. In mid-September the group’s tolerance came to an end. It abandoned its old range on the southeastern slopes of Visoke and migrated so far west into Zaire that even Peter Veit had trouble following.

  This defection left the Parking Lot Gang with almost no habituated gorillas to display to paying visitors. So, with considerable trepidation, they undertook to habituate, à la Fossey, a family on Mt. Sabyinyo which they called Group 13.

  The name was ill-omened. On December 1 one of the two silverbacks in the group was found dead. An autopsy revealed that he had been shot through the shoulder, had suffered a shattered arm as a result, and had finally succumbed to infection. When Dian heard about it she was outraged, not just by this evidence that poachers were still lethally active in those parts of the park not patrolled by her own men, but by the obtuseness of the Parking Lot Gang, whose members had remained unaware for weeks that the silverback had even been wounded. Her comment was pithy.

  They didn’t notice he was wounded, sick, and dying! But most of them wouldn’t notice an elephant if it dumped a ton of merde onto their heads.

  To Bill Weber she wrote: “Two months ago Sebahutu, one of the killers of Uncle Bert and Macho, etc., was released from prison after only ten months of a ten-year sentence. Also Seregera has been released after serving eighteen months. I am kept informed of the activities of both men. Both have rifles. They are in the park continually, and Musido-Sabyinyo is their main working area because of elephants. Subahutu shot an elephant near Ngezi about 1½ months ago, but the animal, a young one, fled and died near the summit of Visoke.

  “You can take it for what it’s worth, but in my mind one or both of these men are responsible for the death of your silverback. If you want, and I won’t take it on without your approval and von der Becke’s, I will organize a legal raid on their huts through the Substitut and the military, NOT through the park conservateur…. I certainly won’t do it if you think I am interfering.”

  They did—so she didn’t, which was no more than was to be expected. However, Bill Weber sent her a revealing personal note.

  “I’ve now seen nine gorillas die since I got here, and each has taken its toll personally. Between the deaths and the other things going on in Rwanda, I think I might now understand you a little better; just a little.”

  Unfortunately he did not understand the gorillas any better. Barely a week after sending her this note he found himself in Ruhengeri hospital, a badly bitten man with several shattered ribs. He wrote Dian an apologetic explanation of what had happened. The previous Thursday eleven paying tourists had come to see gorillas, and Weber had ill-advisedly agreed to guide them all. When the straggling group finally found the gorillas, the animals were almost invisible in the thick vegetation. Bored or disappointe
d, three of the tourists began to wander away from the main body and were complaining loudly among themselves. This frightened the gorillas away. Weber doggedly led the tourists in pursuit. Coming upon a tunnel in the vegetation, he decided to crawl into it in order to see where the animals were. “Inside I saw a young-looking silverback about eight meters above me. We looked at each other for about eight seconds before he ran at me. All I remember is being hit with a lot of force, feeling his teeth sink into my neck and rolling downhill for about thirty feet before he let go and ran away….”

  Whatever his faults, Weber knew enough to be contrite. He begged Dian to tell him what he had done wrong.

  She replied with sympathy, kindness—and good advice.

  “You were definitely handicapped by having so many people with you, not to mention three unruly ones. The gorillas cannot be expected to tolerate such hordes of strangers, and for their own future—sense of security for breeding and carrying on with the natural behavior—it would seem that only small groups of people should be allowed to go to them.

  “As you well know, I am very, very, very permissive, even overly considerate of the animals I work with. I detest standing upright with them, talking or smoking around them, pointing at them, splitting groups of people around them, etc. I’ve just always put their moods first before anything else, but that’s my nature…. I also do not believe in following a group once they have moved off. Always one must think about the next day—are you going to leave them with a sense of trust in you, or are you going to push that sense to the breaking point? I believe in leaving the animals contented even though much of the time I was left very discontented about a day’s contact, only having seen some rumps fleeing.”

  She sent some light fiction with this letter to help Weber while away the hours. Once again the Lone Woman of the Forest had failed to live up to her reputation.

  Dian was not, however, naive enough to believe that all would now be well between them. She wrote to Rosamond Carr, “I guess you’ve heard the news about Weber’s getting bitten and two ribs broken. I’m truly sorry for him as he has always been terrified of gorillas, and now it might be even more difficult for him. I’ve been exchanging letters with him, all very, very polite and honest. This will change when that $@/#& of a wife of his arrives.”

  Three days before Christmas, Dian received a long letter from her Boston editor, Anita McClellan. It was not a pleasant yuletide gift.

  “Over the past four or five weeks,” Anita wrote, “I have had a number of enlightening conversations with primate people, including Dr. Hal Coolidge…. All of them led me to believe there is a large movement to replace you with a ‘more scientific’ person, one who would work to develop the gorilla sanctuary as an economic resource. Alan Goodall is energetically lobbying to be the person to take over when you leave…. Barbara Holecek confirmed Coolidge’s and the Geographic’s attitude as generally held, that ‘Fossey is considered to have gotten too close to the gorillas to be able to remain scientific about them.’“

  By strange coincidence, the porter who brought Dian this letter also delivered a note from a bazunga down at the car park — Alan Goodall himself, asking permission to visit camp. Although she had just read his recently published book and had been irritated by some of its contents, she nevertheless sent word that he could come.

  The following day Goodall and Peter Veit, led by Rwelekana, made a trip to Kabara in Zaire to visit the meadow where Dian had begun her gorilla work—and where Carl Akeley had died and been buried so many years before. They found his grave empty. His bones had been stolen from it only a few days earlier — perhaps to be used in the making of sumu.

  Then it was Christmas and for once there was no Wog Party. Dian and Peter Veit celebrated alone.

  Peter came up at six-thirty and I wasn’t ready as had cooked all day. Peach pie, fried chicken, baked stuffed chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy. I also made a chocolate cake, ice cream, canned artichoke hearts, breaded eggplant, and garlic bread. He ate too much. Then we gave gifts. He gave me an empty notebook, a labeling machine, a copy of Brave New World, and a very nice note. He told me that outside of his family, I’d done more to change his life than anyone else, and wished me happiness.

  When Dian awoke on New Year’s morning, 1980, it was to the marvelous conviction that the worst of the turmoil and tensions that had been her lot for a year and more were well behind. She could now look forward almost eagerly to a “long vacation.” Karisoke seemed secure. Her book was ready for polishing. And what made the prospect of several months in America most seductive, she was sure that a great new love awaited her there.

  Dian turned Cindy and Kima loose for a romp, visited her hens and collected three fresh eggs, blew up the fire Mukera had already lit for her, cooked and ate her breakfast, then took a mug of coffee outside to sit and watch the burnished clouds streaming over the summit of Karisimbi.

  Although a stack of the inevitable and interminable paperwork awaited her attention, she ignored it to slip off her jeans and sun her legs and hip while watching her world busy itself with the new day. A flock of multicolored parrots arrowed out of the forest into the big hagenia beside her cabin. A duiker doe minced down the meadow slope toward the stream. A blue plume of woodsmoke from the men’s cooking fire rose slowly from the clearing below, and from far up the slopes of Visoke came the deep throb—felt as much as heard—of a silverback beating out the assurance that all was well with him and his.

  The sun was sliding high by the time Dian put out her third cigarette of the morning and reluctantly entered the cabin. There were scores of letters to write, and she had been hard at it for hours when there came a timid knocking at her door.

  She opened it to find one of her porters carrying a bulging potato basket on his head. She was annoyed by the interruption.

  “What are you doing here, Mutari! I didn’t ask for any more potatoes!”

  “Not potatoes, mademoiselle! Iko ngagi—this is a gorilla!”

  Dian’s heart sank. Mutari lowered the heavy basket and, at her gesture, brought it into her living room. Slowly, and with apprehension, Dian removed the lid and turned the basket on its side. Out crawled a very weak infant gorilla.

  Very early that morning in Ruhengeri, Dr. Vimont had been visited at his home by two furtive Africans who, after much hesitation, asked if he wanted to buy a gorilla.

  Once he realized they were talking about an animal that had already been captured, he agreed to purchase it for about one thousand dollars. He and the two men then drove some fifty kilometers in his car to the place where the baby was being kept-a potato shed adjacent to Mt. Karisimbi.

  Prior to leaving home, Dr. Vimont had told his wife to alert the authorities. When the three men got back with the baby, he proceeded to get the two sellers drunk while the military surrounded his home and then arrested them. He then arranged to have the baby sent up to camp where it arrived so unexpectedly.

  As yet I know very little about the details of its capture, except that it had been kept by the poachers for at least two weeks and that it probably came from the far side of Mt. Mikeno. Apparently both its mother and the group silver-back were killed during its capture.

  It is in far better health than Coco or Pucker in that it has no capture wounds and has made the transition from artificial back to natural foods (wild celery, thistles, galium leaves, bracket fungi, blackberries) within a short time. But it remains extremely lethargic, is possibly developing pneumonia, and has horrid diarrhea. For the first week it slept with me, but the diarrhea and lakes of pee made sleep impossible for both of us. I now have a sleeping box built into my bedroom, turned into an artificial “jungle,” and have been able to catch up on sleep. But it will prove difficult to care for as it needs constant company.

  It couldn’t have come at a worse time, since I’d planned to leave for Cornell in mid-February. As grateful as I am to have it here where it will be taken care of properly, I remain very concerned as to its future. Have not ye
t received any word from Rwandan officials, whom I assume will want it to go to a zoo, nor do I feel I can permit the new students who are coming to take the serious responsibility of releasing it in the wild. For sure it won’t be ready for any decision as to its future by the third week in February. I’m really in a bind because of my obligations to Cornell.

  The peaceful interlude was at an end. Three days after the arrival of the orphan gorilla (a three-year-old female that was initially called Charlie), the first of the new research students arrived. He was Stuart Perlmeter, a soft-spoken twenty-six-year-old graduate in anthropology from the University of Oregon. Dian made one of her instant assessments.

  I really quite like him as he seems to be mature and has integrity. I really think he will be the one to take charge here while I am gone.

  Meantime she showed him how the camp was run and introduced him to the gorillas.

  On January 12 the other students arrived: twenty-four-year-old John Fowler, a zoology major from the University of Georgia, and thirty-four-year-old Carolyn Phillips, an attractive woman whose qualifications for the job consisted of a B.A. in English and a general interest in animal behavior. Together with Peter Veit, now the old veteran, the quartet comprised, in the words of a visitor to camp, “something of a mixed bag.”

  Carolyn Phillips’ stay was short. On February 1 she returned to the United States. With her departure the three young men sorted out their relationships anew, rather like Group 4 had done when deprived of female members.

  Dian was now as busy as she had ever been with caring for Charlie, trying to pack her belongings and papers, breaking in the new students, and supervising her antipoaching patrols. Because she did not have much faith in Perlmeter’s ability to maintain sufficient pressure on the poachers, she decided to wage a preemptive blitz before her own departure. To this end she hired extra men, and through January and February her patrols scoured the surrounding countryside to such effect that poaching virtually ceased within a radius of four or five kilometers from camp. In addition Dian “arranged” (there is no indication of how she did this) for the arrest and imprisonment of the notorious Sebahutu.