Wearing his military outfit, JEAN-PIERRE VON DER BECKE made a striking impression. He had less of a colonial inclination after a few years of studies at Bercke-lay in the late 1960s, so he wasn’t a spit-and-polish enthusiast. Jean-Pierre felt best in blue pants and a baggy sweatshirt. Still, he marched back and forth, inspiring his new charges, in a precisely ironed outfit of unknown provenance, with his white hair and beard cascading.

The group of Rwandan park rangers confronting their new superior was distinctly diverse. The clothes were completely different from one another, and very few of the guards even wore matching slacks and shirts. Almost no one was wearing boots. I worked in a park for 10 months straight with rainproof gear that I did not possess.

They carried what seemed to be obsolete weaponry from the First World War—heavy, single-shot rifles that were little better than flintlock muskets. Although it was very difficult, the guards heroically attempted to pass as a professional corps in response to Jean-Pierre’s barking orders.

Bill would often attend this theater in late August 1979 before setting out to track the gorillas he had chosen for the MGP tourist program. The guards and Jean-Pierre would have departed by the time he got back, around mid-afternoon. In their stead, lyre-horned Ankole cattle were seen idly munching on the grass outside the crumbling structure that seemed to be the Parc National des Volcans headquarters.

A lonely Markhamia tree, its lower branches cut for fuel, accentuated the forlorn setting. It was easy for Bill to picture Jean-Pierre sipping a glass of good scotch in his Gasiza mansion, perplexed by his presence here. It was a very legitimate query.

It seemed like the Rwandans didn’t share Jean Pierre’s certainty. Even though the park only had four visitors per day on average, Camille, the conservator, was uninterested in training and exercises, preferring instead to stay in his warden’s office and attend to whatever official matters arose. Following the exercises, Camille would proudly display his uniform to his soldiers. Even if there were tourists around, he would make it clear that the gorillas are safe.

I shall personally put an end to the life of any poacher I come across in the woods. It was a confident and daring promise that was reiterated time and time again. Camille, luckily for the neighborhood poachers, hardly ventured into the woods. Till he drove the park’s only Land Rover home after a late-night binge, however, he was generally downing drinks at one of Ruhengeri’s several drinking spots by lunchtime.

The introduction of the MGP in the summer of 1979 caused a drastic shift in our circumstances. Coming up with suggestions to aid the mountain gorillas was easy; convincing hesitant listeners to implement those ideas was a whole other ballgame. Here we were, faced with a high-stakes environment where our solutions may succeed or fail.

Get your Laker tickets for half price on a first-come, first-served basis to aid stranded customers. At the height of the chaotic evening rush hour, we hurriedly said our goodbyes, gathered our belongings (including two big trunks with research data and plant specimens), and made a frenzied dash through the Underground.

Upon reaching Victoria Station, we joined the ever-increasing throng outside the British Airways office, where representatives said that no tickets would be sold until the next morning. We then took it in turns to sleep on the pavement beside our possessions while we staked out our spots in line. The previous day, we were asked by The Times of London for our thoughts and feelings on the mountain gorilla’s future. Our outstanding hosts lavished us with wine and food.

Our gala gowns were little more than rags when the clock struck midnight and we stepped out onto the chilly concrete of Victoria Station. Our position relative to the head of the line was the only thing that counted there. We were pleased to see that the cutoff for half-fare tickets had dropped seven spots the next morning, so we could finally board our trip home.

Although it did appear to underplay the importance of the fauna and flora preservation organization in the project they had started via their money raising drive, we were happy with the new configuration. Before we started working in Rwanda, we knew that valued the work of African wildlife Leadership foundation and had benefited from great guidance from its Nairobi based director, Bob Poole.

Since Poole was believed that Africans were ultimately accountable for their own parks and animals, he had especially urged us to try working with African institutions and people. He died in a terrible vehicle accident within months of our conference, and East Africa lost a valuable voice for conservation.

During a previous visit to karisoke, we also met Jean- Pierre von der Becke, who looked sincere and committed to conservation. He would be a remarkable team leader with his many language abilities and appealing gray hair. We now wanted to know where on the team we fit.

The elements of the mountain gorilla initiative related to tourism and education piqued our curiosity. We had great relationships, language skills, knowledge of how things worked and didn’t function in Rwanda; we had the required expertise with gorillas and schools.

When Robinson Mcllvaine visited Rwanda to formallyize plans for the MGP, we eagerly anticipated our first meeting with him as we had already built the conceptual framework for the whole project, committed a lot of time and energy in its promotion, and were ready for action. MCLLVAINE shut us off after a short presentation however. AWLF’s help will only extend to anti-poaching efforts. The other pursuits have no bearing on anything.

This was Dian’s perspective, but it was shocking to hear it from the CEO of a company whose name was based on local education initiatives and had personally seen the ability of tourism to support park preservation in East Africa. Then, however, came the true bombshell. You two seem to be rather self-serving, and from what I know, you only want to remain on to get notoriety.

We were not ready for this unexpected attack on our character and motivations even though we knew the ambassador had spent the previous evening chatting with Dian. Setting aside his hostility, we went to our thoughts and reasons for the elements of education and tourism related to a three-pronged conservation effort.

We saw that, with ongoing assistance from the Wildlife Conservation Society, we could work on these problems on our own; nevertheless, we reasoned that a joint approach would be more successful for everybody involved. Mcllvaine stopped his personal assaults and started to participate considerably more in the conversation.

In the end, he came to endorse the three-prolonged mountain gorilla project in which we would oversee the components related to tourism and education under Jean-Pierre von der Becke as project director.

One more obstacle remained before the MGP could advance. Approval of the specifics of the tourist program required ORTPN. With his rejection to any tourist initiative focused on the gorillas, Dismas Nsabimana had shocked everyone in the previous months. It was generally believed that his shifting stance came from a bribe from Dian.

He did, however, explain his position on the admirable grounds that the gorillas shouldn’t be disturbed. With half of the gorilla population dead and the cattle project announced, however such claims had little bearing. Nsabiman’s opinions were made immaterial when Benda Lema took sudden replacement as ORTPN’s director.

Short, balding Benda Lema has sharp eyes and a taste for elegant outfits. Unless one considered his degree in economics from Patrice Lumumba University in the Soviet Union, he had no background in conservation or tourism. Rumor had it that Lema, his surname, was short for Lenin Marx.

Though they did not show up in our conversations on gorilla based tourism, Benda Lema had some Marxist inclinations. His main concerns were about the gorillas’ potential income source. The questions were very pertinent to ORTPN, which had to make money to pay its expenses. They were also crucial for Benda Lema’s capacity to argue against the still-pending Virunga cattle project within agriculture.

We gave Benda Lema the best possible responses to support his cause without guaranteeing outcomes we could not be able to fulfill. Here we were on somewhat unstable footing, but because we had no experience whatsoever with the market for this new kind of travel. As visitors to East African parks, we believed that entrance costs as low as $2 greatly devalued wildness and species.

In Rwanda, we had fourteen hundred visitors most of them were resident expatriates visiting the Parc des Volcans in 1978, each paying just $5 for a seven day ticket. Given that we could provide a view of gorillas, we thought the market could support a much higher price. But what would the market pay and how big was it?

If five thousand cattle were expected to bring in $70, 0000, we would declare that three thousand visitors would pay $25 apiece for a total of $75,000, needing a response and using our “opposition research” to excellent use.To raise the stakes, we said we believed a well-run program would inspire more individuals to show up and spend even more. The need for quality control did not appear to affect Benda Lema; rather, the figures captivated him. Many folks are fascinated with the gorilla?

Indeed, we told him, hundreds of insane white people would spend a lot of money to climb the difficult terrain and chilly rain to sit with wild gorillas. The director mumbled at the idea.Beaucoup d’abazungus, fais? Indeed, that much we could confirm for the planet was populated by insane white people.

We were working hard to complete our tasks in Karisoke as the mountain gorilla project started to take form in the spring of 1979. Dian never carried out her threat to leave the research station, but as our intended seventeen-month tenure drew to a close, we had much to do. Starting the mountain gorilla project right away seemed quite important as well.

Amy spent her last months and then days with Group 5.The weeks of vegetation sampling offered an unexpected kind of emotional separation; the first time since our encounter with Mweza, we passed more than three field days consecutively away from her new family. She also brought Beethoven and his family to Peter Veit, a fresh researcher starting his own study on sexual cycles among group 5 ladies just after Amy ended her work.

Although Amy knew we would be living and working on the mountain gorilla project nearby in several years, it was regrettably unclear if we would be able to visit Karisoke. Every hour with the gorillas so gained significance. For how much more would Beethoven rule? Icarus seemed to be an even more unlikely successor; more inclined to quit the gang and go alone.Next in line came ZIZ, a remarkable black back with an apparently powerful group net work of connections.

Certainly, gorilla leadership included social and political abilities as well. Then there was Pablo; it was difficult to picture the clown prince with his crossed eyes, twisted smile, and inclination for trouble as an adult, let alone with the mantle and authority of a silver back but it was sad to think of him outside of the family setting banished to the social life of a solitary man.

Amy wanted him to get a job allowing him to stay with the family. Amy could only hope that poor shy shinda might sometime muster bravery, much like the lion in the wizard of Oz. And what about the predominate matrilineals? Effie, the alpha female, was in charge of the group in big measure. Would puck, her eldest daughter, continue in such capacities? Would she team with her sister Tuck or compete? Alternatively would Tuck go to another family prior to starting her breeding?

There were so many queries with so few answers. If we were to go from study to the more crucial MGP conservation activity, there was also too much to accomplish. There would be time to address some of our questions if we could assist to rescue the mountain gorillas. If otherwise, such questions were essentially irrelevant.

Spending over half of his time in Kigali, Bill was establishing the groundwork for the MGP’s tourist and education components. While not working with the vegetation sampling, he watched outlying groups in camps. By then we had also persuaded Dian to engage Craig Sholley, an old Peace Corps buddy and flatmate from Bukavu, to assist with non-study group projects and other necessary tasks for full-time researchers unable to handle.

Craig was working to habituate Nunkie or at least his family to the everyday presence of human observers in our last months. David Watts visited the Nunkies group for resercah as well. Nunkie showed every sign he would continue that way as long as he lived and was still uncomfortable in human contact.

Others in Nunkies group were more personable. Two adult female transfers from group 4, Papoose and Petula and their youngerlings, were the most laid back; N, Gee and Lee was equally friendly. In a frequently turbulent household kept on edge by Nunkies anxious disposition, the two mothers—child pairs were welcome sources of calm.

The life of mountain gorillas never stops. David went back to camp early and furious one day in May. He came onto Lee seated next to the new track from that morning as he had approached Nunkies group. Petula was close by, but something seemed off. Lee stood up as David drew near and the issue was obvious.

She was trapped in a trap, her ankle securely encircled by a wire noose. David turned to see if he could cut the wire, but Nunkie’s bluff charge halted him. David brought up the issue with Dian back at camp. She instructed one of the trackers to walk toward the group and then fire a pistol to frighten the other gorillas away. In principle David would have some time to remove the trap. When they actually fired the rifle, Lee was so terrified by the loudness that she tore the trap from its spring mechanism and left with her family.

Craig watched sadly for many days as Lee hobbled about trailing the wire behind her. He could see where the strain of tearing free had tightened the metal noose such that it cut sharply off revulsion toward misery. Six years before, he had spent many days freeing domestic animals and wildlife caught by the rising waves during the great floods from Hurricane Andrew in his home Susquehanna valley. His first dream was of become a veterinarian.

Though medical darts and medications to immobilize animals at an increasing number of field stations are now readily available, Karisoke lacked a strategy or approach to handle the ongoing issue of wounded gorillas. All we could do, without the tools or power to act, was wait and arrange a rescue should Lee ever be left alone.

Bill accompanied Craig on what seemed to be a slow motion death watch as Lee gradually sank. She would spend hours sitting in the middle of the day, her head tilted forward on her breast. She would sway unsteadily for a few paces when she stood, then sit once again. Petula would carry hear sometimes; she mainly remained at her side or near by.

She burst. The remainder of the group would go away to eat, then come back to rest close to their weakest member. The young gorilla would periodically produce a subdued groan, a pitiful cry of suffering. Frustration blended with anger at her predicament. At last Petula started to spend more time apart from Lee.

Bill and Craig developed a proposal for which Peter Viet was also hired.Craig would grab Lee at the first chance and dash back to camp at great speed. Should Petula or Nunkie pursue him, Bill and Peter would serve as a rear guard. We had never attempted that before, so Peter questioned how a silverback would react to a cough grunt.

Arriving to the group that morning, it seemed we were late. Petula was nowhere to be seen as Lee slept quiet in the night nest she had shared with her mother. We approached closely and looked for life. Craig claimed to have seen Lee’s heave and we acted. Heart thumping, Bill passed Lee to take up his station while Peter was a few feet away.

Craig cried “Got her!” and ran away just as Nunkie tore over the nearby grass. Nunkie pushed forward in a brief terrible instant, halted just short of the arm waving, yelled white monkeys, then wheeled 180 degrees in escape. Bill and Peter understood that now was not the time for lingering. Turning back and focusing sharply on the area where Nunkie vanished, we rapidly joined Craig in high speed flight.

It was time to advance and assume greater influence over events influencing our life as well as that of the gorillas. Back at camp, some of the edge off our adrenaline fuel condition came from anxious laughing. Still, Lee was in such bad health and we had to act quickly.

Dian was not in the camp.In any case, Mweza had taught us that Karisoke kept no medications of the kind required. We had earlier in the week informed the physicians at the French hospital in Ruhengeri that we may show up with an emergency patient at any moment. Craig and Bill then alternately carried Lee down the mountain, then drove him the last fifteen kilometers to Ruhengeri using a Karisoke vehicle.

Thought it serviced the public population, Pierre Vimont, chef de mission at the French hospital in Ruhengeri, felt it was a military hospital with Vermont having a military commission and a medical degree. He was a short sturdy guy driven by a love of animals and fast sense of comedy. Originally talking about the necessity of emergency medical treatment for wounded mountain gorillas, we had got to meet Pierre via mutual acquaintances.

He urged us to bring him any gorilla anywhere—at his house or at work—and he would do whatever he could to assist. Arriving with Lee at home during Vermont’s post- lunch siesta, we tested his offer. Pierre reacted fast, putting together a group of helpers to operate first to cut the cable and then clear the large infection that had crept over it.

Then there was a complete round of internal and topical antibiotics. Then we waited Vimont arranged a guest room at his house where Craig and Bill alternately stayed and slept with Lee. But to no use; Lee passed away on the second day from her systemic illnesses.

For many more weeks, we stayed in Karisoke. We gave our sad good byes to the surviving gorillas, but Lee’s death marked the real emotional conclusion of our trip. There was yet another dead gorilla. Setting the trap was an African poacher.

The top gorilla research station in the world had absolutely no means or backup plan to assist an injured gorilla, hence we had to jury-rig a risky rescue of Lee, who might have been easily treated by willing French specialists only a few days earlier. It was time to advance and assume greater influence over events influencing our life as well as that of the gorillas.

JEAN-PIerre Von Becke wore his military uniform and created a striking image. Few years of study at Berkeley in the late 1960s had taken the edge off most of his colonial impulses; he was not a spit and shine enthusiast. Blue trousers and a baggy pullover made Jean Pierre most at ease. But he was walking back and forth exhorting his new troops from a cleanly pressed uniform of doubtful provenance, white hair and beard streaming.

The score of Rwandan park guards confronting their new manager was clearly mixed. Few guards had even a matching pair of shirt and trousers as no two outfits were exactly the same. Just half of them wore boots. None carried waterproof rain gear to operate in a park where 10 months of rain fell annually.

The guns on their shoulders seemed to be antiques from World War One single shot heavy rifles, no better than flintlock muskets. Still as Jean Pierre yelled orders, the guards valiantly battled all the obstacles to resemble a passable imitation of a professional corps.