The day we were waiting for has arrived, today we track the Nkuringo group of gorillas. We walked to the UWA Ranger Office from our campsite, where the rest of the tourists were waiting to be briefed by Augustine. Rules and refunds were explained to us before we left and also we were offered porters to help carry our bags. Fred was our porter who I asked after the fact since we kept going down, down, down on very rough terrain. Augustine radioed often to find out where the gorillas were and where Dr. Gladys and Silver were tracking the night nests earlier with the other HUGO group from Nkuringo.
There were 17 gorillas in one area crowded together. We first noticed the twins and the mother, who were amazing and adorable. The experience has been indescribable to see the entire group together. Dr. Gladys was worried when the mother laid back on top of her twins but then they climbed up on her and were relaxed.
When the other tourists left, Posho came down from the tree he was in to say hello to Silver. When he came close to Silver, he went down on his front elbows almost like a bow. Silver has been following the Nkuringo group of gorillas for 12 years and can identify all of them by their nose print. He keeps record of all the births and worked with Beth to identify the photos that were taken.
As we were leaving we saw Mama Christmas and Rafiki, a Silverback, which made 18 in all. We were told that we were very lucky to see all of the group at once.
Dr. Gladys mentioned that there were many insects flying around the group, which she thought was unusual.
As we returned to the Ranger Station for lunch we were totally surrounded by the mountains, which was only 5 - 10 minutes away from the gorilla group we saw, but it took us 1 1/2 hours to locate.
We had a graduation ceremony to receive our certificates, which was an accomplishment.
We then went back to the community hall that held the workshop yesterday in order to have a final discussion with the HUGO members. The HUGO members were trained on how to find night nests, how to take fecal samples, and how to determine what type of gorilla the droppings belonged to (i.e. silver back, black back, adult female, sub-adult, juvenile, infant).
Overall it was a long, but absolutely amazing day!
No comments:
Post a Comment