GorillaSound

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!