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Top right: Judy and Bob Scheuerell on
their visit to Volcanoes National Park,
home to mountain gorillas.
Bottom: The Scheuerells observed a
family of mountain gorillas eat, play
and rest in the jungle.
The rangers know each gorilla by name PHOTO COURTESY OF BOB AND JUDY SCHEUERELL
and speak of the gorillas as though they
are members of their families. The gorillas The tourists were taken by jeep into the the jungle continued.
are as safe and secure in the park as these interior. When the jeep couldn’t go any
dedicated rangers can possibly make them. farther, they got out and walked, any- Before tourists arrive for a gorilla trek,
There are ten families, or troops, of goril- where from 90 minutes to three hours trackers have fanned out in the park and
las in the park. Each troop consists of a through thick jungle with no paths, with located where each troop is and radioed
large male silverback, females and young the trail hacked by machete as they went. back to the guides the locations. Each
of both sexes. Males develop a streak of sil- At a retaining wall, built to keep the wa- tour group is taken to one of the ten ar-
ver hair on their backs when they mature ter buffalo out, the porters came in very eas where a troop has been spotted. With
at about age 14. They reach a height of 6 handy by boosting the tourists up over a a little luck, the tourists get to observe a
feet and weigh between 400 to 500 pounds. 5-foot rock wall, then the walk through troop and what mountain gorillas do in
So the old joke about “Where does a sil- their daily lives. The trackers’ other duties
verback gorilla sleep?” is true. He sleeps consist of patrolling the park around the
any darn place he wants to. clock armed with rifles. Poachers, if found,
Like the fastest draw in the West, the are shot on sight. While the shoot-on-sight
silverback must hold his position when policy is a good deterrent, poaching still
challenged by the young up-and-comers. continues.
While the males usually don’t fight to
the death, they do fight until one gives As the Scheuerells’ group got closer to
up, with the same male holding on to his their troop, they were told to leave every-
leadership positon or a new, younger sil- thing except their cameras behind and
verback taking over as troop leader. not to use flash photography. The group
was instructed that if gorillas were en-
ONLINE: SCTEXAS.ORG countered along the way to stand to one
side and allow them to pass and not to look
the gorillas directly in the eyes ― a sign of
aggression ― because you don’t want to up-
set a 500-pound gorilla. Tourists are not
allowed to approach a gorilla closer than
20 feet. Gorillas are not given these same
instructions, so gorillas may approach
the tourists as close as they like. As the
Scheuerells’ group approached the gorilla
area, the guides emitted tiny grunting
sounds similar to the sounds the gorillas
make to alert the troop that visitors were
in the area.
Continued on the next page
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