Saturday, August 6, 2011

Gorillas in the Mist

Rwanda Gorillas in the Mist – My Experience

Gorilla Tours: Of all the shows, you can be on a safari in Africa, for me, perhaps the most haunting and memorable is an encounter with a mountain gorilla in Africa.

Few adventure experiences can compare with the sheer wonder and admiration humiliating to witness these creatures in nature. It was the famous American naturalist George Schaller, who said "Nobody who looks at a gorilla's eyes - intelligent, gentle, vulnerable - can remain unchanged, the gap between ape and man disappears, we know that the gorilla still lives in us."

Schaller is revealing beautifully and succinctly, to see African lions, herds of elephants, leopards and rhinos are exciting and certainly an event focusing on, however,  there is something more, something almost ethereal, like clouds of these elusive beasts.

It is this ethereal feeling which resonates so heartbreaking when it comes to you face to face with a distant relative at a time so strange yet so familiar. With fewer than 800 mountain gorillas in the wild in small scattered areas in Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC, the pulses to see these animals, learn from them and therefore understand their situation has never been greater. The major threats to gorillas due to habitat loss to human settlements and agricultural land, sometimes poaching.

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