A visit to the world of Dian Fossey

Oh look! There’s a rustling in the bushes behind us, and I suddenly see a hand covered with thick black hair reaching out for a bamboo branch, followed by a satisfied smacking sound. “Stay very still,” says Ignacius, my guide, making a deep, rolling mhhhmhhhh noise. That’s gorilla language and means: I feel good and won’t hurt you. While the big silverback is munching on his favorite plant, a smaller gorilla takes up a position right behind me.

I slowly turn around to face him. He gives me a shy but interested look and then walks on all fours back into the rainforest. “Come on!” says Ignacius, following the blackback (a male gorilla that will turn into a silverback when it is older) through the thicket. He uses his machete to clear a path through the tangled undergrowth. I follow, lowering my head to avoid the prickly leaves but shudder a little at the sight of the machete. It was the weapon of choice for the poachers who used to kill countless mountain gorillas in Rwanda until very recently; it was also used in the brutal killing of a million people in just 100 days during the tragic genocide here roughly 29 years ago.

It is the darkest chapter in this country’s history in which nearly everyone lost at least one relative. But despite the pain, the people of Rwanda are making a conscious effort to turn away from the hatred toward a brighter future. As a result, Rwanda has developed into one of Africa’s most modern countries: Women hold 65% of the seats in parliament, the capital Kigali is the cleanest city on the continent – plastic bags were banned here as early as 2008 – and the protection of mountain gorillas has become a top priority.

“We have chosen forgiveness over revenge,” says my driver Emmy, as we travel from Kigali to Bisate, where the gorilla tracking I’m about to do originally began. On our way there Emmy points out the many modern speed cameras, which I am familiar with from Germany. Located a few kilometers apart, even on country roads, they are responsible for bringing down the high numbers of traffic fatalities. There are also over 200 genocide memorials scattered throughout the country, proclaiming to the world that what happened here must never happen again.

If you want to visit the mountain gorillas, you need to be patient.

Rwanda has undergone an equally transformative change of heart about its most treasured inhabitants. Dian Fossey, who carried out an aggressive campaign against the country’s lax attitude to poachers in the 1970s and warned that the mountain gorillas would be extinct by the end of the 20th century, is today celebrated as a hero.

So it’s hardly surprising that if you want to visit the mountain gorillas, you need to be patient. Because this experience is so unique, it is highly sought-after and there is a long waiting list. Only 12 of the existing 20 gorilla families can be visited by tourists. And only eight people are allowed per family for one hour. “We have guests booking up to two years in advance,” says Ingrid Baas, operations manager at Wilderness Rwanda. Opened in 2019, the company’s beautiful Bisate Lodge in the Volcano National Park is booked continuously and regarded by experts as one of the finest lodges for gorilla trekking. After a short, restless night in my pleasant, tastefully decorated lodge – one of several protruding from the hillside like beehives – I got up at five, packed my waterproofs and gloves (for protection from thorny bushes) into my backpack and pulled on the waterproof hiking boots and gaiters (to prevent insects crawling up into my shoes). I then met my driver Emmy again who drove me by jeep to the gorilla tracking meeting point, where I was assigned to one of the 12 groups.

Equipped with a (beautifully carved) walking stick, a lunch box and water bottle we began our ascent. Led by three guides, our group of eight walked across fields of beans and potatoes that had been planted by local farmers at the foot of the 3,669-meter-high Sabinyo volcano. A fact that makes transparent how far humans have encroached into the mountain gorillas’ habitat. Mount Sabinyo is one of eight volcanoes in the Virunga Mountains and extends into Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The three adjoining countries are where the mountain gorillas live. The last official count identified 1,060 of them in the Virunga Mountains. This is a gratifying result as there were only 250 left during Dian Fossey’s time.

It is nearly lunchtime on this sunny December day in the Volcanoes National Park in northwestern Rwanda, which is now home to 20 mountain gorilla families. It’s 24 degrees Celsius and there isn’t a rain cloud in sight. Just before we encounter the gorillas, we are urged to put on our masks to protect these rare animals, which share up to 98 percent of their DNA with us humans. Ignacius: “Since we made mask-wearing obligatory, our gorillas have been ill much less frequently. And not just because of the COVID pandemic. The gorillas are susceptible to other common human diseases too.”

Mountain gorillas are plant eaters and have their first meal around 10 in the morning after leaving their night nest. They spend about five minutes each evening building a new nest from branches and leaves (for hygienic reasons, as they also use their nest as a toilet). The time window after their first meal is the best time to visit the gorillas. That’s when they are satisfied and tired, which is hardly surprising, as a fully grown, 1.70-meter-tall silverback can polish off as much as 30 kilograms of plants in a day.

Nowadays, the large primates have no predators to fear – unlike in Dian Fossey’s day when their main enemies were corrupt game hunters who went out to hunt for baby gorillas. In her detailed articles in publications like National Geographic, the American researcher brought this brutal slaughter to the attention of the international public.

Gorilla families – one should know – will fight ferociously to protect their young. Be- cause of this, poachers often had to kill an entire family to capture a single baby gorilla, which they would then sell for the best price to a Western zoo. A family can consist of as many as ten to twenty members, which goes a long way to explain the drastic decline in the mountain gorilla population during Fossey’s time. “Luckily, since those times, zoos have learned that mountain gorillas cannot survive anywhere else than here – in their native habitat,” explains Ignacius.

How Rwanda protects the mountain gorillas

This is also why the government of Rwanda has put all of its energies into protecting the mountain gorillas, introducing severe penalties for poaching and publicly supporting the Karisoke Center that Dian Fossey founded in 1967. Since renamed the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, countless celebrities have donated generously to the preservation of these endangered animals. The most famous one is TV host Ellen DeGeneres, who was so impressed and touched by her first mountain gorilla adventure that she had an ultramodern museum dedicated to Dian Fossey built in Bisate called The Ellen DeGeneres Cam- pus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in honor of the mountain gorillas and to help educate visitors about them. After opening in February 2022, personalities like Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton and actor Harrison Ford have been humbled by their encounters with the mountain gorillas.

Today, the foundation gives 10% of its tourist income to the state, which in turn lets every inhabitant of Rwanda participate in the gorilla tourism revenues, thus thwarting the poachers. On top of that a team of local scientists and doctors works round the clock to expand our knowledge of mountain gorillas. Eight of the 20 gorilla families living here are observed exclusively for scientific purposes.

To follow the gorillas, the “gorilla trackers” – specialists who also document the health and habits of these animals on a daily basis – look out for the Kwisanga gorilla family, which I am allowed to visit today. Ahead of us, and using walkie-talkies, the trackers tell our guides exactly where we need to hike in order to find the family.

Kwisanga means “feel at home”

Kwisanga means “feel at home” and the name is derived from the family’s remark- able history. “What is unusual about them is that there are two silverbacks in this gorilla family. They arrived here from Congo 15 years ago and never returned,” explains Loyce, the assistant manager of Wilderness Bisate Lodge, speaking to me later that evening. She previously spent 11 years working as a guide at the Volcanoes National Park. To become a gorilla guide, she says, you have to undergo extensive training and meet very high standards. Only 17 out of 1,000 applicants make it to the final selection each year.

We notice the vegetation becoming wilder as soon as we enter the rainforest at the foot of the volcano. There are also elephants and buffalo living here who can sometimes become a threat to tourists. “Yesterday, while I was leading a group, one of the guests got nervous and tried to run away when the elephants came charging towards us,” one of the trackers tells me. Unexpected things can happen if visitors reach the gorillas before the trackers do. “You have to remember that these are wild animals,” warns Loyce, who has only ever once encountered a really aggressive gorilla family during her years as a guide. “We later learned that the baby of that family had been caught in an antelope trap, which left the whole family in agony.”

There are no signs of any disturbance when we finally catch our first glimpse of the Kwisanga family that I am visiting today. Instead, I sense a kind of harmonious fatigue. Just as it begins to rain, up on a lush green hill, I spot a fluffy baby gorilla, relaxed and yawning as it snuggles up to its sleeping father – the second silverback in the family. A few seconds later another young gorilla comes stumbling out of the bamboo bushes and sits down right in front of me. As a visitor, you’re asked to keep a distance of at least seven meters. But if the animals approach you, just stay where you are, Ignacius explained to us during the hike here. So I stay very still and maintain my position. Suddenly, I find myself so close to the teenage gorilla that I could reach out and touch it. But unlike Dian Fossey, who documented her amazing work with mountain gorillas in her best-selling book “Gorillas in the Mist,” we are strictly forbidden to touch the animals. I am reminded of her impressive documentaries as I watch the young gorilla turn onto its back and start playing with its feet like a human baby, watching me closely the whole time. When it starts to rain harder, the young gorilla’s mother swiftly appears out of the bushes, gathers her children up and takes them to lie with her under the protection of a tree, very close to the sleeping silverback. The other silverback remains sitting stoically, almost defiantly, in the rain with his arms crossed over his chest. He puckers his lips in what appears to be a gesture of annoyance.

After exactly one hour, our time is up and our unique audience with these majestic animals comes to an end. As if the gorillas can sense this, the sitting silverback stands up, passes very close to me and disappears into the bushes, out of the heavy rain.

Thirty-seven years after her death in 1985, the murder of Dian Fossey, who fought so passionately to ensure the survival of these creatures, remains unsolved. Perhaps it was poachers. Today humans are still the only threat to the mountain gorillas. The loss of their natural habitat is one of the most serious challenges that these animals face today. This is why Wilderness is working hard to make the villagers feel an integral part of the enterprise. The annual naming ceremony of the newborn gorilla babies is a memorable event in Bisate village life. The villagers are already very proud of the ambitious Wilderness undertaking and supportive of the large reforestation project around Wilderness Bisate Lodge, which will significantly expand the mountain gorillas’s habitat. “Our goal is to substantially extend the boundaries of the national park to provide more space for the mountain gorillas to spread out. Our lodge will then be right in the heart of the rainforest,” says Ryan, who manages Wilderness Bisate.

Before I leave, I am allowed to plant a tree, an African redwood with a lifespan of up to 250 years. It is one of the mountain gorillas’ favorite trees. To monitor the progress of the reforestation project, Wilderness has set up cameras around the lodge. The first two mountain gorillas were spotted exploring the area just two days before my arrival!