Congo Nursery Rescues Gorilla Orphans

As rain drummed on the metal roof of his office, Mark Attwater bottle-fed 4-month-old Banga, the newest member of the Brazzaville Gorilla Orphanage.

“We treat them like human babies,” said Attwater, who helps run the unusual orphanage. “The pregnancy of a gorilla lasts nine months, and their development is very similar to humans.”

When the gorillas arrive, they are in desperate need of treatment, some with rope burns, bullet wounds or machete cuts. Most have seen their mothers and fathers killed for meat, and were spared only so they could be sold on what was once a thriving export market for gorillas, said Helen Hudson.

Hudson, a pediatric nurse in charge of nursing the orphans back to health, said the gorillas also suffer from gastroenteritis and other illnesses picked up from people in the villages where they were held after being captured. Attwater said that about one in five of the gorillas dies after arriving at the orphanage.

The orphanage staff members “literally bring these gorillas back from death. Shortly thereafter they are romping with their group in the forest surrounding the orphanage on daily feeding forays. It is an extraordinary experience,” said Michael Fay of Wildlife Conservation International.

Attwater and other staffers have led a campaign to press Congolese authorities to arrest anyone trying to sell gorillas. “The Congolese government is very cooperative. All trade is banned and hunting is illegal. But it can get pretty hairy when we confiscate gorillas from soldiers,” Attwater said.

Hunting gorillas, whose meat is the main source of protein in some forest villages, has been a tradition for centuries in the Congo. Gorillas benefited from the villagers’ slash-and-burn farming, which promotes the growth of the vegetation that gorillas like to eat.

This relationship was shattered when guns replaced traditional hunting weapons and logging and oil companies built roads that opened previously remote forests to poachers.

In recent years, as many as 600 gorillas were being taken each year in Congo, mostly for meat, though some body parts were sold as fetishes. Gorilla skulls and hands are believed to have magical powers. The Congolese believe that a newborn baby can gain the strength of a gorilla if it is washed in water with gorilla blood.

An estimated 50,000 lowland gorillas remain in the world, mostly in Congo, Gabon, Cameroon and Zaire. The species is not yet endangered, but if the hunting is not stopped it soon will be, Attwater said.

In an effort to provide a sanctuary, John Aspinall, founder of Britain’s Howletts Zoo, and the Congolese government entered into an agreement to set up the rescue center.

Open since September, 1989, it now has 19 gorillas, ranging in age from 4 months to 6 years.

Attwater, who worked for 10 years with Aspinall’s zoo gorillas in Britain, said the goal is to reintroduce the gorillas into the wild. A site has been found about 75 miles north of Brazzaville near LeFini Fauna Reserve.

The plan is to use the methods employed in Brazzaville, where orphanage staffers watch over the gorillas and play with them in the adjoining forest during the day. At night, the animals sleep in special cages and nesting platforms, protected from poachers.