Gorillas Caught in an Increase of Snares

Another Wire Snare (Part 1) | GorillaDoctors.wildlifedirect.org / Dr Lucy

"When I first read Benard’s e-mail, I didn’t want to believe it. A blackback in Nkuringo Group had a wire snare around his leg. The gorilla had continued to eat, but he’d begun to fall behind the group. One of us needed to cross the border to Uganda before closing time, stay in Kisoro for the evening, and leave for the forest early the next morning to deal with the snare. The drive would take two hours, followed by another hour’s trekking. I wondered why Bernard hadn’t called until I remembered the poor cellphone reception around the parks in Uganda. He must have gotten the message from the park warden and decided the best way to relay it quickly was via the nearest Internet Café. I wrote back asking him to call me as soon as possible to confirm the bad news. This case sounded a lot like the last three snares in Uganda: no chance that it would resolve on its own.

From the bit of information I had, I suspected that this was not a new snare. It takes a few days for lameness to occur, and that could explain why the gorilla was lagging behind his family. Much depends on how tight the snare is and on whether it is indeed made of wire. I think it’s been years since we had a case of a rope snare in Uganda. What was going on? This would be the fourth wire snare in Uganda in six months, the sixth in the past 13 months

Various questions collided in my mind. The most obvious and important one was: Where are the snares coming from? As I’ve explained before, the snares are set to catch game for food, especially small antelope, or duiker. Are more being set, or are the gorillas moving through snare-laden areas more often? If there are more snares in the parks in Rwanda and Uganda—we have no idea what’s going on in DR Congo—is it because there are more hungry people these days? Whatever the answer, many illegal hunters are still getting into the park. Is this because of the leaky and insecure border with Congo? Maybe the poaching patrols have simply not been doing their jobs, or maybe they lack the equipment to do them effectively.

I’d raised these questions during a recent community conservation meeting held by the chief park warden of the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. I asked them again after little Icyerecyezo’s snare injury. A month earlier, I’d also spoken with the chief park warden in Uganda’s Bwindi and Mgahinga parks and directed Benard to check with the patrols there. Each time the reply has been the same: the wardens have more rangers patrolling more of the parks than ever, and believe they’ve become more proficient at finding snares. That may be so, but given how many snared gorillas we’ve seen recently, there may also be an increased number of snares in the park."