Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 7, 1995 TAG: 9511090001
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Last spring, Craig Sholley returned to Rwanda to see how friends had fared during the four-year civil war and last year's bloody overthrow of the government.
Along with friends and former co-workers, he wanted to check on Nunkie, Mrithi, Mkono and about 600 other mountain gorillas he'd come to know over the last 20 years.
They are the last of their species.
Sholley, 44, has been studying mountain gorillas since the 1970s. He headed Rwanda's world-renowned Mountain Gorilla Project for two years, and has helped organize eco-tourism efforts to save the gorilla and its habitat.
He will present a lecture called ``Mountain Gorillas: Conservation Status After the Rwandan War'' on Wednesday evening at the Science Museum of Western Virginia. Only a few tickets remain for the 7 p.m. talk.
Sholley returned to Africa last spring as a consultant for the October National Geographic magazine cover story about the effects of the war on the mountain gorilla.
Americans watched on TV the hordes of people clogging roads out of Rwanda into Zaire, fleeing the civil war. More than a half-million people died in the clash of the Hutu and Tutsi tribes.
Sholley slogged through muddy camps of 300,000 refugees or more, asking for specific people and having surprising success.
``I was able to find a huge number of people I cared about,'' he said.
In the mountain rain forests of Rwanda's national parks, he found more old friends, like Titus.
Sholley first met Titus nearly 20 years ago, when the gorilla weighed a mere 100 pounds. Sholley recognized him by his nose-print - a unique series of cracks and lines above the nostrils that identifies gorillas the way a fingerprint identifies a person. Titus is now a majestic silverback with a family of his own.
``He's extremely tolerant, a wonderful father,'' Sholley said, describing how patient the 400-pound animal was as his infant children climbed over him.
Not all gorillas got through the war as well as Titus, though.
Only one is confirmed dead as a direct result of the fighting, but several more have been intentionally killed recently, possibly for political reasons.
Sholley met his first gorilla 20 years ago, when he was a fresh-out-of-college Peace Corps volunteer in Zaire. He persuaded a Belgian conservationist working in the area to take him into the jungle.
After walking through dense vegetation for hours, they were charged by group of gorillas.
``We didn't see a thing,'' he said. ``Just vegetation shaking at us on all sides.''
A few hours later, they came out on top of a hill. Near the bottom, sitting quietly, was a large male. He made a half-hearted charge up the hill and stopped.
Sholley had been fascinated by Africa and wildlife since he was a child, but at that moment he was hooked. He still remembers the gorilla's name: Kazimir.
A few years later, Sholley earned an L.S.B. Leakey research grant and went to work with Dian Fossey - at that time the world's most famous, if not notorious, gorilla researcher - at the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda. The 1989 film ``Gorillas in the Mist'' was based on Fossey's book of the same title.
It was at Karisoke that Sholley met Nunkie, a huge and gentle silverback that wandered into the research area and started attracting females. Sholley set out to ``habituate'' Nunkie's group, to get them accustomed to him so he could study them.
``[Nunkie] was a real wanderer,'' Sholley remembers. ``He took me up and down volcanoes. I was charged on a daily basis.''
Habituation is a long, arduous process, Sholley says. You have to abide by the gorillas' rules.
You spend a lot of time tramping through cold, wet rain forest 10,000 feet above sea level, following them until they understand you won't hurt them. After a while, they get curious. The younger ones begin to climb trees to look at you.
For months, Sholley saw little of Nunkie or his group but ``fleeting glimpses of black.''
Finally, after about six months, Nunkie and his group appeared across a ravine from him. For the first time, they did not flee.
Before his relationship with Nunkie was over, Sholley could sit with him as a member of the group.
Much of the year or so that Sholley spent with Fossey was not so positive.
``She was not an easy person to work with,'' he said. By the time Sholley got to Karisoke, Fossey was paranoid and largely cabin-ridden. Her main focus had become stopping gorilla poaching.
``She basically formed her own little vigilante-style force,'' Sholley said. She was convinced the Rwandan people didn't care about the mountain gorilla. Fossey was murdered in 1985. Some have speculated that she was done in by poachers or Rwandan officials who saw her as a roadblock to tourism.
Sholley credits Fossey with bringing the plight of the mountain gorilla to world attention, but her methods have been roundly rejected.
Now, it's all about tourism. Sholley has worked over the years with the Rwandan government to set up national parks and to protect the gorillas. The gorilla has become a symbol of Rwanda, and an economic asset.
Sholley works with International Expeditions, a company that takes tourists into the Rwandan rain forests to see those ``fleeting glimpses of black,'' and hopefully more.
``If not for tourism,'' Sholley said, ``most of the rain forest would have been destroyed a decade ago.''
The gorilla population had grown slightly at the last census in 1989, but with the war, that progress is in danger.
One gorilla, a large silverback named Mrithi that appeared in ``Gorillas in the Mist,'' has been confirmed killed during the war. A group of soldiers apparently surprised Mrithi in his night nest, Sholley said. Mrithi let out a warning growl and the soldiers fired.
Another silverback, Mkono, was reported killed by a land mine, but Sholley says the Rwandan government disputes the claim. They say they've seen Mkono and they offered to take Sholley to see him.
``I didn't argue with them,'' Sholley said.
Gorilla poaching ceased completely a dozen years ago, Sholley said, but that situation may be changing, too. In the last few months, seven gorillas in Zaire and Uganda were intentionally killed. Sholley believes a dissatisfied political group is trying to exact economic sabotage.
``It's like a loss in the family,'' he said. ``These guys are individuals that I've come to know and love. They are humankind's closest brethren. You look into their eyes and you see something human.''
It frustrates Sholley to see his efforts unraveling because of the politics of humans. Mountain gorillas are phenomenally tolerant and gentle, he said. They rise above people in that respect.
The mountain gorilla is a ``flagship species,'' Sholley says. Because of its allure and popularity, it can be used to illuminate the plight of the entire natural world.
``If all the effort and caring cannot ultimately insure [the mountain gorilla's] survival. ... I think we have to take a look at what we can do about anything.''
But last year's political upheaval may prove to be a long-term setback.
``The typical tourist isn't going to want to go to Rwanda in the next few years,'' Sholley said. ``Rwanda's got a very long road to walk.''
by CNB