GorillaSound

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 16 2009 | By: gorillasound

Kingo is usually my focal gorilla, so the only data I collect on the females is how close they are to him. However, in the past few days I’ve had a few interesting experiences with them.

Mkpeta and I were following Kingo when Kingo decided to climb a tree. Seeing a silverback climb 40 meters up a tree is quite impressive, but once he’s up there it can be difficult to see what he’s doing. So we are moving round the tree trying to get into a position to see him. We find a good spot, but unfortunately, and without realizing this at the time, we are between Mekome and the tree. Mekome feels very strongly about being close to Kingo, which is why her infant is called Ekendi (meaning love) because of her love for Kingo. So anyway we hear cough grunting and Mekome is about 6m away from us and not happy about us being there. When gorillas cough grunt at you it usually means you are in their way and you have to move. However moving away from Mekome puts us closer to the tree which doesn’t make her any happier. Suddenly, Ugly, who was 15m away from us in a completely different direction comes running at us screaming ‘waaaaaaaaaaaah waaaaaaaaaah’ and then Mekome also starts screaming and charging at us, so we have two females coming at us from two different directions, screaming, shaking bushes and showing lots of teeth. Ugly doesn’t particularly like people and she was being followed by Roberta so was really wanting to charge, and just couldn’t resist rushing over when she heard Mekome cough grunting at us. Anyway I’ve learnt my lesson and will never get between Mekome and Kingo ever again!

The next day I was working with Mongambe and we were collecting data on Kingo. The females had split into two groups and Kingo was moving between them. If he was with one set of females, every so often we’d go and just see what the other females were doing and how far away they were. On one check we were looking for Mama and Ugly. We walked past a large wusa (Treculia Africana) fruit on the ground. It’s about the size of a volleyball. Continuing on we found Mama and Ugly, then turned round to head back to Kingo. We’d just walked past the fruit and suddenly there was this growling noise behind us. I’m still not completely fluent in Sango but Mongambe said something along the lines of ‘We need to step away from the fruit’. So we backed away slowly and Mama came rushing up and put her arms around the fruit and wasn’t going to let go. Kusu then came rushing up to see what Mama had found but she wasn’t going to share with anyone and whack! She punched him on the chin. She then very quietly began to eat it, hoping to keep her discovery secret from Kingo, who would just take it off her.

Kingo didn’t find Mama and her wusa fruit. However Mekome left where Kingo was and we heard cough grunting from the direction of Mama, so maybe she had to share her fruit after all.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 10 2009 | By: gorillasound

Yesterday the trackers came back at the camp saying that Holland, who spent all morning with Kingo still in the swamp, needed other shoes because his sandals were completely broken by walking in the muddy water of the swamp. He did the rest of the morning walking in his socks! They found Kingo out of the swamp, after walking for two hours with the water at their waists, and when Julia, me and the trackers for the afternoon arrived to the group, Kingo was with few females traveling and feeding in the forest.
As soon as I met Kingo I thought there was something strange in the air. After few minutes the trackers told me to look how Kingo was walking. And yes, his right hand was swollen and he was knuckle-walking only with his left hand. He was putting the weight on the back of his right hand, which gave him a funny limping look. At one point he was on a little hill eating terrestrial vegetation while one of our trackers was sitting right at the base of the same hill. Suddenly Kingo decided to come down, the tracker moved rapidly, and we had a good look to his hand. I immediately asked to Julia if she saw how Kingo was walking and if she could see any scar, but her face was talking for her! It was clear that she got impressed by the size of Kingo coming down the hill, that the only thing she could see was his immense size!! Sometimes I forget how big and impressive he is!! Probably Kingo got hurt in the swamp, from some spines or thorns, but differently from us, his recovery last just few hours. We were surprisingly happy to see him the next day climbing a big tree and walking normally around the forest! We just hope the group will stay out of the swamp for a little while!!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 08 2009 | By: gorillasound

Kingo and his family have been in the swamps of the Ndoki river for over a week now. There isn’t a lot of fruit in the forest at the moment and the nauclea trees in the swamps are starting to have ripe fruit. On the 30th of August Kingo’s females left him and went to the edge of the swamp. Kingo preferred to stay in the bemba forest and dig in the soil for food. We’re not exactly sure what he’s eating, probably some sort of root nodule. Its small, crunchy, and he really likes it, he can spend hours digging. The females didn’t want to go into the swamp without him so all afternoon there were calls between them, and Kingo went off in the opposite direction. However he wasn’t strong enough to overcome the wishes of his five females and the next day they were all in the swamp.
The Ndoki swamp is at the extreme of their home range and it is nasty, full of lianas, spines and biting ants. If you don’t watch your footing you can sink in up to your waist and moving round is slow. The gorillas can use the trees much more than we can so moving round for them is easier.
On Saturday we had the craziest day in the swamp! We took over two hours to find the group. When we found them they were in a bai, a clearing full of aquatic vegetation. Kingo then moved across the bai and re-entered the swamp on the other side. We followed. Kingo then decided to turn round and head back the way he came, right into us. Moving out of his way quickly is hard in the swamp, and he wasn’t going to wait for us or change his direction!! So we are trying to get out of his way when in front of me in the vegetation I see a viper. Roberta is behind me saying ‘Move, move Kingo is coming!!’ and I’m replying ‘Snake! Snake! I can’t!!’ So we are stuck between Kingo and a snake, Kingo gives us a very evil look and passes close by us. You forget how big Kingo is until he is very close to you!
So we continue following Kingo, but he can’t make up his mind where he wants to go. He re-crosses the bai and starts eating vegetation then he comes back around towards us so that suddenly we are in front of him and directly where he wants to be! Normally in the forest we would back away but here there is nowhere to go so to get out of his way we have to pass directly in front of him. Kingo is now cross with us, these stupid people, always in his way and so slow, that as we are trying to quickly wade through knee water balancing on mats of vegetation that you don’t want to fall through, he snarls at us and slaps the water, sending a spray of water all over us. And after that we flew across the swamp!! We all ended up hanging off a tree at various angles, Kete and Mkpeta managing to hold onto Roberta and I and the tree. I think Kingo realized at this stage that we were as out of his way as we could manage and he stalked past us. And during the ‘flight’ Mkpeta lost his sandal and he only has one pair. It was stuck somewhere in the water, as it wasn’t floating free. So Mkpeta and Kete had to search under the water until they found the sandal, which took about ten minutes and they ended up completely wet.
Kingo, meanwhile, had moved on, finally deciding which direction he wanted to go in! Feeling rather shaky after our close encounters with him and the snake we continue slowly on our way. Finally it seems he is heading towards the edge of the swamp. Moving is an exercise in three dimensional gymnastics, you have to find a place to hold onto which isn’t spiny, a rotten unattached liana which will not support you or something covered in ants. Then you put your foot down and test the support before you put your weight on it, then you move. You have to step high over spiny bits and lean out round trees. At one point I slipped off the liana I was trying to put my foot on and sank in up to my waist. Kete was just far enough ahead of me that he didn’t see I’d fallen in. This was when I realized I don’t know Sango for “Help, I’m stuck in the swamp”. I should’ve just called out his name but instead I start whimpering like a baby gorilla ‘MwwAaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaarrrghh’ (maybe I’m taking this gorilla vocalization thing way too seriously) and he comes back and pulls me out. Literally. I have no leverage so he has to grab me under the arms and pull me up until I can get my feet back on the liana. And did I mention the swamp water is solid brown, so its not as if you can see where the liana is, its all done by feel!
Roberta spent the rest of the day in the swamp, recording the vocalizations of the females. I went back to the camp in the afternoon. Normally to get out of the swamp we would backtrack along our path. I told Roberta that if Kingo was leaving the swamp I would stay with him for the rest of the day with no food rather than go back the way we came. I can’t remember what Roberta said in reply but at the time it was so funny we both started laughing and then I realized if I didn’t stop laughing I was going to start crying, it had been that difficult. Luckily Kingo was now close enough to the edge of the swamp we could go forward out of the swamp. When we made it back to the forest my legs were all shaky and felt like lead. Kete was leading the way and I was slowly following, he went round a bend in the path and disappeared from view. Suddenly he came running back towards me. I was just staring at him thinking ‘Oh no! It’s an elephant!! I don’t have the energy to deal with this! I’ll just sit on the path and let him squash me!’ Then I saw that he had stopped and was stamping his feet up and down, which means it was army ants. I will probably never say this again but I was so happy it was army ants!
And despite the fact that Kingo did end up leaving the swamp in the late afternoon, it was only a brief reprieve for us, and on Sunday he was back there again.
So after a week of swamp, the swamp is winning! Roberta has lost a toenail, we’re covered in scratches and ant and fly bites. The days are long and data collection is slow. Hopefully Kingo and his family will tire of it soon and return to the forest!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 03 2009 | By: gorillasound

In the last two days Kingo and his group is hanging out really close to the swamps. In three days they visited the bais and the forest inundated nearby four times!! The reason is the presence of Nuclea sp., a wonderful fruit, big as a big orange, sweet, and as the trackers told me extremely good to eat. During these days Kingo females are pushing strongly to stay into the swamp and feeding those succulent fruits.

Yesterday we arrived to the group at 12:00, Kingo was getting out from the swamp. The morning team told us that they slept out but get in again in the early morning, and that all the females were still inside the swamp eating Nuclea fruits while Kingo was traveling out. When we started to follow him, we realized that he was vocalizing continuously. We had the impression he was waiting for the females to get out and travel together, but they were not coming, and he was getting annoyed. We spent all afternoon with Kingo and Ugly with the little Kenga (her baby of 8 months)just few meters from the edge of the swamp area. Finally he started to call loudly for several times. And very exactingly Ugly helped him calling. She was just 15meters to him and together they were calling the others!! (Or at least to us it seemed so!). Just few times we heard Kusu far away reply to their calls, and then nothing again, probably because he was back with his mum deep into the swamp.
At the end, around 16:30, Kingo decided to go even if some of the females were still far away. We followed him to the first ebuka, where Ugly and Mekome reached him right away.

That night all females went where Kingo was and together went to sleep 500 hundred meters west. This morning they came back in the swamp and again Kingo went out much before than all the others. He spent hours foraging and listening if the females were coming out (again Ugly was with him). Only 3 hours after, we could see again Mama, Emilie, Fini and Mekome, and all together finally started to walk toward the mix forest far from the swamp. We are now waiting to go in the forest for the afternoon and we really hope……that today they will not change their mind, turn back and get wet again because we already have all our shoes covered by mud and completely soaked!!!!

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