Gorillas in the Hot Zone
Apollo was the leader of a group of 22 gorillas. Some of the gorillas included in his group were females like Artemis, Maya and the adolescent Aphrodite. Others like Ulysses and Prometheus were males who might take over the leadership of the group. In 1991, Dr. Magdalena Bermejo and her cinematographer husband, German Illera started doing research in the forest where Apollo and his family lived. They were the first team to habituate western lowland gorillas to human presence. Apollo’s group got used to people being around and we began to learn about Western Lowland Gorillas for the first time.
Then in November of 2002, one of the trackers noticed that the size of the group had changed. The trackers noticed that the gorillas were stressed and Prospere described the females as crying. They began to find carcasses in the forest. Dr. Bermejo and her husband who had gone to Spain for the holidays were called back to their study site. By January they searched the forest and discovered that Apollo’s group had completely disappeared and was feared dead. More than 150 gorillas died at Lossi and estimates are that thousands have died in the region.
ECOFAC, the conservation organization working in the region called in a team of medical experts. They soon discovered that the cause of death was Ebola hemorrhagic fever. More dead chimpanzees and gorillas were being found outside the sanctuary motivating concern that the Ebola virus was headed toward Odzala National Park. Odzala contains the densest population of chimpanzees and gorillas in central Africa.
People in the area began to get sick as well, and the infection was traced back to the consumption of Ebola tainted gorilla meat.
As of August 2004 at least 200 people have died of Ebola. Scientists are now realizing that Ebola is a more important factor in the decline of great apes (by almost 50%) across central Africa in the last two decades than the bushmeat trade or deforestation. Other scientists are working to identify the reservoir that houses the virus in order to understand how the disease is spread. Today, Dr. Bermejo and her trackers are working to find out exactly how many gorillas have survived at Lossi. Only a handful of solitary males have been located. At Odzala National Park, Bermejo and Illera are doing surveys to see how Ebola has affected the great ape populations there. At one clearing where at least 18 groups congregated, more than half of those groups are missing and carcasses are being found in the forest.
The ecosystem of Lossi and Odzala have become a hot zone – a living laboratory for us to try to understand the spread of Ebola.
