Year of the Rat, Week of the Gorillas

Last week it was elephants, this week gorillas, another of the so-called "charismatic megafauna" (a terrific phrase) that call attention to global issues of conservation and the environment. We begin with a reminder to check out Expedition Rwanda on Yahoo, one of the best episodes in the regrettably short-lived Richard Bangs Adventures.

In it, Greg Cummings of the Gorilla Organization points out that the best way to save an endangered species is to get the people of the country involved in their preservation. He sees that happening in Rwanda, where the attempt to create what he calls "an all-singing, all-dancing, gorilla-loving nation" is succeeding. (The phrase seems a bit, well, patronizing, but the intentions are good, I'm sure.) Daryl Hanna, a well-known animal rights advocate in Hollywood circles, was along for the journey, so if nothing else it's worth following the story for her celebrity involvement, since that seems to be what it takes these days to "drive eyeballs." Must be harder than herding cats.

Meanwhile, in Dakar, Senegal, conservationists announced the birth of a rare mountain gorilla in eastern Congo, where rebels have been accused of killing and eating the endangered animals. (See MSNBC story) This follows upon an earlier wire story, of Congolese rebels calling a "cease-fire," to " to stop killing mountain gorillas and allow government rangers to restart patrols." Now all this sounds like good news, but clearly it's a case of "do you want the bad news (gorillas under fire) or the worst news (local civil war)?"

Just in case you forgot, there are two main species of gorilla (western gorillas Gorilla gorilla and eastern gorillas, Gorilla beringei), and a couple sub-species in the mix. The mountain gorilla, rarest of the genus (Gorilla beringei beringei for those keeping score at home), numbers fewer than 1000 individuals, split between two ranges in the Virungas of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and the euphoneous Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda. There are many more lowland gorillas in captivity than mountain gorillas, but that's not saying much. Check out Wikipedia for more info.

A good place to see gorillas domestically is the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park. Now I don't like zoos, none of us do, but it's a necessary evil if the alternative is extinction. I made a recent visit there to see another ape species, the bonobo or the "gracile chimpanzee" as some call it, subject of one of Frans Lanting's photo projects. If you're into this sort of thing, the SDZoo has a podcast stream on the gorillas, and many other topics besides.

You can learn more about mountain gorillas at the American Wildlife Foundation, which sponsors programs to adopt and protect this and other species.

Never Forget the Elephants

What's up with elephants? Largest of land mammals, seemingly invincible, and subject to an enormous body of science, legend and lore, these creatures native to Asia and Africa have found their way into the news with increasing regularity of late. We wrote earlier about the growing number of human-elephant encounters that turn ugly, and the possibility that, in the words of researcher Charles Siebert, we’re witnessing a "species-wide trauma and the fraying of the fabric" of elephant society.

The news doesn’t get better. Just consult elephant-news.com for the latest stories in the media on elephant rampages, attacks, and tramplings, intentional and otherwise. Although sometimes a grim humor can be found, as in the outraged temple elephant that picked up an irritating horn-honking motorcyclist and hurled him to the ground (an act many of us can sympathize with), usually a far more grim reality underlies the news. A timber elephant runs amuck… a zoo worker is trampled by one of his charges at feeding time… camera-toting tourists are rushed and crushed… and, as many saw on CNN (or YouTube), an elephant attacked a minibus at a polo tournament in Sri Lanka.

Elephant-news.com also has the latest scientific discoveries, poaching incidents, books and other media, even job listings for the elephant enthusiast. Founded by Sweden’s Dan Koehl in 2001, elephant-news.com follows his earlier online projects Absolut Elephants (a virtual online elephant encyclopedia) and an elephant list serve. It may seem awkward to call elephants the canary in the coalmine of modern social disintegration, but it may not be off the mark.


Marching Onward...

Next item of news is the upcoming LUNAR ECLIPSE this weekend, Saturday night March 3. If you're not sure what that is, I don't know what to say - try this viewer's guide for orientation. Suffice it to say that, while it's nowhere near as wild and exhilarating as a solar eclipse, it's still worth staying up for or at least going outside to see. And who knows, you might have a transcendent experience, as this video shows (launches Windows Media player).