Podcast Transcript: 5. Looking to gorillas to save killer whales, with Kirsten Gilardi

Kirsten Gilardi (00:00):

Hello, Pod of Orcas listeners before we get going, just a quick announcement. You're about to hear episode five in a seven episode series about southern resident killer whales. Next week, we're going to get into toxins. And the week after that, we have our finale, which will feature a very special guest, who I'm super excited to talk to. Although we're about to finish season one, you should not unsubscribe to this feed. The story of southern resident killer whales is ongoing. So when a big development happens, we may pop into this space to add context and some scientific insight to what's happening. Having said all that, we still have some very interesting stuff to share in this series, including the episode you're about to hear, enjoy. Welcome to Pod of Orcas I'm Justin Cox and with me is SeaDoc Society, board member. Kevin Campion - Kevin, how's it going?

Kirsten Gilardi (00:45):

It's going good, man. I'm stoked to talk about whales today.

Kirsten Gilardi (00:49):

So am I. And so the conversation I had that that listeners are going to be hearing after, after this little intro is with Kirsten Gilardi, she's a SeaDoc Society ex officio board member. And one of, kind of the foundational people with the organization when it started 20 years ago, including the hiring of Joe Gaydos and the forming of its mission and everything. Kirsten also has this whole other life where she's the executive director of Gorilla Doctors, a program that takes place in central Africa. And there are a lot of parallels between these two. Kevin, you have listened to my conversation with Kirsten, anything, jump out to you when thinking about both these species together?

Kirsten Gilardi (01:29):

I've known Kirsten as, as long as I've been involved with SeaDoc and like, man, what a cool perspective on the Southern resident killer whales in that having this, this population of charismatic mammals, that we can identify every individual with and what that means for their conservation and what it means that we can learn just with the science. And yeah, it's just such a cool connection that I never would've thought to have made.

Kirsten Gilardi (01:58):

The reality is that in like all facets of life, it's very helpful to have a success story that you can look at if you want to be motivated or inspired or have sort of a roadmap for how to plow your own trail. And the reality is that like the situation with Southern resident killer whales is not good right now. And the same thing is true of salmon. And you look over at the work they've been doing with gorillas, which has involved like wild veterinary care for decades now. And the story is a clear success story. And to have, have that not only just as a thing you can look at, but also as a thing that SeaDoc Society has a direct line of collaboration with is just a, it's a source of hope in a time when this stuff is, it's not always easy to find like tangible hope in a situation like this.

Kirsten Gilardi (02:47):

People love these, both of these two species. I mean, you have people who are absolutely adore gorillas. And then the same thing is true clearly of killer whales. And so there's this tourism economy around them, which, which in one hand gets people to care, which a lot of times is half the battle with trying to save an animal. So in this situation, you don't have that, but an influx of tourism, if you don't do it carefully, you can then have a bad effect on the animals as well. So it's a fascinating, it's just the similarity. There's so many similarities.

Kirsten Gilardi (03:18):

From what Kirsten said, how it's so carefully managed there and how we are like starting to realize that maybe should be carefully managed here is pretty interesting. And then one thing that is, you know, relates to SeaDoc"s work that I thought was cool to think about is, let's say we take a lesson from this Gorilla Doctors stuff and that direct intervention can work. We know that like saving an individual in a population that small can be key to the success of that population. And then thinking about that paper, Joe just published about causes of mortality for Southern resident killer whales, because, you know, based on these like a couple of decades of stranding research and like realizing that there are human caused mortality and like, and things that maybe we could intervene on with, with veterinary medicine that could reduce those causes and, and like, you start to add all those things up and, Oh man, maybe we can save a whale, maybe we can save a whale every couple of years and like, you know, extrapolate that 50 years out. And it starts to look like a success.

Kirsten Gilardi (04:26):

Yeah. One whale is not always just one whale. It has a long tail effect. So as I kick over to Kirsten, um, one thing real quick, she mentions as Kevin was just describing, they're very careful about this, um, veterinary process. All the work happens out on the mountain. The, she mentions the possibility of humans passing diseases to gorillas, which is a very real issue and specifically talks about COVID and because how can you not right now? And I'll add that there, there are no cases of coronavirus up on, in the gorillas, in the mountains of, uh, Uganda, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. But since the conversation we had, um, several gorillas at the San Diego Wild Animal Park or Safari park did test positive. I think they're recovering now, but that's a noteworthy I think, addition to our conversation. I'm going to kick over to Kirsten a little bit more about Kirsten.

Kirsten Gilardi (05:19):

She is the director of the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, and a health sciences clinical professor at the department of medicine and epidemiology at UC Davis. She's an ex officio board member of the SeaDoc Society and executive director of Gorilla Doctors. So I hope you all enjoy this conversation. You can get this free SeaDoc Society newsletter at seadocsociety.org/newsletter. And you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, we are SeaDoc Society on all those things. So follow along, um, we're doing, working with all kinds of species out here in the Salish Sea. Thanks Kevin.

Kirsten Gilardi (05:53):

Yeah, thank you, Justin.

Kirsten Gilardi (05:56):

This series is made by our amazing sponsors, Shearwater Kayak Tours, Rainshadow Solar, Two Beers Brewing Company, Deer Harbor Charters and the Averna family, Betsy Wareham and West Sound Marina, the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee, and Apple State Vinegar. Thank you also to an anonymous donor who sponsored in the memory of Nancy Alboucq. We are a science-based organization on Orcas Island and we are part of the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. Kirsten, welcome to the podcast, excited to have you on.

Kirsten Gilardi (06:29):

Hey Justin, thanks for inviting me excited to be here too.

Kirsten Gilardi (06:33):

The reason I wanted, I was really excited to have this be a part of the series because we're talking about things like specific issues like food or contaminants or underwater noise and things, but also want to like zoom out and look at these issues more broadly or conceptually. And it's kind of a unique position for SeaDoc Society to have this other program that we're kind of affiliated with and collaborate with a lot of the same scientists that's working on gorillas and the mountain and Grauer's gorillas can be personally identified just like the Southern resident killer whales can. They're super popular tourism destinations. So I think there's a lot of parallels to be drawn. And you're someone who's worked with both of these programs over a long period of time. Can you, we've talked a lot about the killer whales, but can you tell us a little bit just generally about what Gorilla Doctors does and how long they've been doing it and how that started?

Kirsten Gilardi (07:24):

Yeah. I had been, I had been working with the Gorilla Doctors program for more than 10 years now, but it really started way back in the eighties during Dian Fossey time, Dian Fossey, the renowned primatologist who, um, studied the gorillas in their habitat in Rwanda, um, for many, many years. And she was really the one to first draw the world's attention to the fact that these gorillas were at risk for injuries incurred in getting caught in snares that were set in the forest by subsistence hunters. These are snares intended to catch wildlife, but for, by, you know, for the purposes of, for food, you know, the people who live in the communities around these parks are poor and resource limited. And so she was really concerned about the number of her study animals that were getting caught in snares. She said, uh, to the world, essentially, if we had a veterinarian here who could safely anesthetize these gorillas and remove the snares we'd save a lot of lives.

Kirsten Gilardi (08:24):

And so that's really how Gorilla Doctors started. And, you know, not only was her call to the world that gorillas needed help from veterinarians, not only was that key to what I would say is our success, now it's also the fact that she was habituating gorillas to her close presence. And she did that in order to be able to study them. She could, um, identify gorillas as individuals, not only because of their sex or their size or whatever, but also because every gorilla, a unique set of wrinkles on its nose that could be, could be drawn in a, in a guide and shared with others so that other people besides just Dian could recognize individuals. And, and in doing that, they could follow these individuals daily, understand the behavior, the relationships with other gorillas in their group. Well, that human habituation and that ability to do identify an individual also allows veterinarians, our Gorilla Doctors program to get close enough to these gorillas, to see when, and if they are ill or injured. And whether that illness or injury is serious enough to warrant clinical care to warrant veterinary care for that animal. And so, um, really was Fossey, Dian Fossey, and other primatologists who were working in the seventies and eighties. It was really what, what they did in terms of habituating, a portion of the mountain gorilla population, the mountain gorillas left in the world to the close presence of humans that really allows us to do our work.

Kirsten Gilardi (09:51):

The idea that the population was small enough to get down to thinking about individual animals. And then you're looking at wrinkles on the nose to identify them individually and basically log how they're doing over time. That's basically exactly what they do here with the Southern resident killer whales, saddle patches, dorsal fins. Right,

Kirsten Gilardi (10:08):

Right, totally. Um, and you know, what's, uh, you know, my worlds totally collided with these two species because I had the good fortune way back when I was an undergraduate in college, um, to spend a couple of summers up in Johnstone Strait, helping researchers study, uh, the Northern resident killer whales. And, you know, one of my big jobs, one of the things I had to do was to make sure I could identify individual killer whales. And I could do that because those saddle patches had been photographed and cataloged and, you know, tied to a unique identifier for those killer whales. And that's what allowed all and still allows killer whale researchers and, and everyone monitoring both the Northern and Southern resident killer whale populations allows, allows everyone to, to monitor the population. And it's exactly the same for the mountain gorillas.

Kirsten Gilardi (10:54):

So Southern resident killer whales have dipped down into like the low seventies and we've had some deaths and some babies in the last couple of years. Do we have a sense of how low like mountain and growlers gorillas populations got at their, at their worst?

Kirsten Gilardi (11:07):

Yeah. So, uh, it's thought that at their nadir, there were probably 250, 280 mountain gorillas left in the world. There are now 1,063, of course, that's, that's the number we use. It's probably a little bit more, a little bit less, but 1,063 mountain gorillas remaining in the world. And that makes them the only great ape whose numbers in the wild are increasing, which is incredible. It's, it's a total privilege to be part of a conservation success story. On the flip side of that coin, it's just really sobering to realize that every other great ape in the world, their numbers in the wild are declining. That includes the Grauer's gorillas. So just to clarify, there are a Western lowland gorillas, and those are the gorillas that, um, you know, where zoos the world have a gorilla in captivity, those are Western lowland gorillas. On the Eastern side of the Congo basin is a different species or subspecies, sorry, the Eastern gorilla and of those there's both mountain and what are called Grauer's gorillas are Eastern lowland gorillas.

Kirsten Gilardi (12:08):

And they live only in the Democratic Republic of Congo and they, they live in both protected and unprotected areas. And just because of the sheer number of people and, um, extraction of resources in the forests where Grauer's gorillas live, um, they are now critically endangered, uh, are thought to be less than 3,500 in the wild. That number is declining. Um, so they, there, there are a small number of Grauer's gorillas that are habituated to the presence of people in a park in Eastern Congo and are at the Gorilla Doctors take, take care of veterinary care for those Grauer's gorillas too.

Kirsten Gilardi (12:46):

Yeah. Interesting. And so the countries are, the work is being done in Rwanda, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. Right?

Kirsten Gilardi (12:53):

Right. Yep.

Justin Cox (12:54):

So how so say you, you have the, the wrinkles on the nose, you individually identify an animal of mountain gorilla and you start, you have veterinarians, like Gorilla Doctors has veterinarians, wildlife veterinarians out there working on the mountains and observing these animals pretty often. What does, like, what's the benefit of knowing something about an individual animal over time? Like how, how do you act on the data you collect or the observations you make both for like an individual animal or for the population as a whole

Kirsten Gilardi (13:24):

Part of the value in that Justin is that, um, you know, these animals are all unique as individuals and, uh, what may be normal for one gorilla or one whale may not be normal for another. And so part of the importance or the value in being able to recognize individuals and follow them over time, is you can notice when something has changed. So for example, you know, the individuals who are are with the gorilla is every single day in the forest, monitoring them, tracking them. Um, they, they get to know these animals. They get to know what their normal behavior is. And one of the first indications that a gorilla might be ill is a change in that behavior. Now, some behavior changes are kind of universal across all gorillas, no matter what might be the cause of their illness. For example, a gorilla that doesn't feel well might not be eating.

Kirsten Gilardi (14:13):

These are, uh, they eat copious quantities of vegetation in the forest and spend a lot of their day eating. So a gorilla that's not eating is doing that for a reason. It's probably because it doesn't feel good. Um, a gorilla gorillas to make what are called night nests to sleep in. And they basically bed down in the vegetation, in the forest. They sleep together as a big family. They wake up in the morning and start moving off into the forest to feed well, if the gorilla doesn't move off into the forest to feed with the rest of it's a family group, then that's a really good sign that there's, um, that, that gorilla that doesn't feel well, it means literally not getting out of bed just like we don't want to get out of bed when we don't feel well. So.

Justin Cox (14:51):

Pretty relatable.

Kirsten Gilardi (14:52):

Very, and like I said, some of those signs are, you know, that that would occur for any gorilla that didn't feel well. But the, the value in knowing these individuals is to know if, you know, there's the signs of more subtle than that. You know, these trackers and guides who know these animals so well can really pick up on those subtle signs that something might be wrong. So that's one of the real values in being able to recognize the individuals and follow them over time.

Justin Cox (15:17):

So they can get up on the mountain and get a pretty good like view. There's a challenge, obviously with the idea that the Southern resident killer whales are going underwater, they're traveling long distances. You, you can't, you can only see so much, but at the same time when J50 starts losing weight and like our friends at SR3 and NOAA are flying drones above them quietly and observing like the drop in weight. And then also noticing that there's like a white substance coming from the blow hole and things like that. That's like a similar thing, right? Like there's something going wrong with this animal. We're watching something happen. And, and it's, it's different because Dian Fossey and the work that's been happening since the eighties has established like a process for like, and I've, I've been a part of some Gorilla Doctors work. And I know how much serious thought and conversation goes into whether to have a wildlife intervention on an animal that's been happening for a while though. And you're seeing the positive results for it, with this. It was like literally within the last two summers that the first wild intervention on a Southern resident killer will happen. Right?

Kirsten Gilardi (16:19):

Yeah. No. And I think maybe, um, on that note, I mean, I hope that all of us working on Southern resident killer whales also take some heart in the fact that the Gorilla Doctor's program having, um, purposely intervened to provide clinical care to individual gorillas that are ill or injured over the last, oh gosh, 20, 25 years has made a huge difference to the population. So you can imagine that, um, for example, let's just take, you know, our sort of bread and butter reason we exist is that gorillas get caught in snares. And those snares, if they're not removed, can result in, um, the gorilla losing its hand or a foot. Um, often these, the gorillas will get the infant gorillas, especially, and they are the most prone to getting snared cause they're just so darn curious and playful. If those injuries are so severe that they get the whole body infection because of the wound that the snare has caused, that gorilla might die.

Kirsten Gilardi (17:18):

If you can imagine that that happens to a young female gorilla who does not survive to adulthood. And to that phase in her lifetime, when she will make five or six babies, that is really, uh, a miss for the population, right? That is an opportunity for growing the population that that would not have happened had we not been able to intervene. So there've been, um, studies, a study in particular that looked at why mountain gorillas are the only great ape in the wild whose numbers are increasing. As I mentioned earlier, and they looked at all the different factors, including the fact that, you know, mountain, all mountain gorillas in the world live inside protected areas. They live in national parks in Rwanda, Uganda, and Congo. So that affords them a very high level of protection from habitat destruction, um, illegal use of the forest, although that still occurs on a certain level, but, you know, they live in very protected areas.

Kirsten Gilardi (18:11):

That's a huge factor, but the other factor after they looked at everything, all the data, the fact that habituated gorillas receive veterinary care, if they're ill or injured, turned out to be a very significant contributor to the annual growth rate of the population. And over the years, that annual groth rate has contributed to this really incredible increase in the total numbers of gorillas on the planet. And so again, like, as I said earlier, it's a conservation success story and it's just a total privilege to be a part of it. I do feel that that that is also a potential for the Southern resident killer whales, especially with all individuals known, the ability to, to monitor them and their body condition and various signs of, of a disease or situations where people could intervene to help that animal. I think it's really important and promising.

Leigh Ann Gilmer (19:05):

Thanks for listening to Pod of Orcas. I'm Leigh Ann Gilmer, regional director for the SeaDoc Society. The nonprofit behind this podcast. I'm here to tell you about Give Big an online giving event on May 4th and 5th for people to join together, to create the world that you want to live in. Head on over to SeaDoc's, website, Facebook, or Instagram, to learn about how you can support science to heal the Salish Sea and the killer whales that depend on this healthy ecosystem with your gift today. And if you just can't wait to support the health of marine wildlife early giving is open. Now we've included a link in the show notes for this episode. Thank you for caring and for taking action to heal the Salish Sea.

Justin Cox (19:49):

Something I'm thinking about, I've been thinking about it a lot leading up to this conversation with you is tourism. Joe basically told me I had a conversation with Joe Gaydos or science director a couple of days ago. And I mean, he says like, this might sound a little bit crass, but if there was no tourism happening in central Africa, like we might not have mountain gorillas or that situation would be extremely dire right now. Because if the, if these things aren't bringing in it, bringing in money is sort of the way that it sounds crass, but really what that is is people acting on like love and care for this species that in this weird way is creating a situation where there's motivation and, and energy behind protecting them, right?

Kirsten Gilardi (20:29):

Totally 100%. I mean, I, I have said on many, many occasions that tourism is what has saved the species from extinction. There's no doubt in my mind, if these gorillas weren't appreciated and revered by people all over the world, and if people did not have the chance to see them with their own eyes and in, so doing provide, you know, a revenue stream, that's absolutely critical for all of the governments of Rwanda, Uganda, and Congo to help them fund the protection of the park, where the gorillas live. There's not a doubt in my mind that they would be extinct and that sounds really dramatic. But when you think about the pressure on the forests where these gorillas live, I mean, this is the, this part of Africa is the most densely populated part of all of continental Africa. And so, you know, a lot of people are living on very, very few dollars a day growing their food.

Kirsten Gilardi (21:28):

And if the gorillas weren't there, weren't occupying the forest, weren't helping to generate a critical source of revenue for protecting that habitat, protecting the gorillas and protecting all the other wild animals in that forest. I mean this, the concept of the umbrella species and an animal that its very presence is helping to, um, also protect other species that it shares its habitat with, gorillas are absolutely the umbrella species for these, these volcanoes that they live on. And without a doubt in my mind, if, if these gorillas were not habituated and facilitating a really important tourism industry, uh, I, I don't think we'd be here today talking about them as a conservation success story. There's a flip side to this, Justin, and maybe this is your next question, and I'm sorry if I'm preempting you, but of course that means that people, humans are coming into close proximity of gorillas on a daily basis.

Kirsten Gilardi (22:25):

And we know that gorillas and humans share, um, a huge portion of our genomes, we're not that dissimilar as, as primates. And so we have to be careful, you know, gorillas are susceptible to many of the infectious diseases that we're susceptible to and we've shown that gorillas can catch viruses from people. So the tourism is absolutely what saved the species, but now by the same token, we have a huge responsibility to these animals to do that tourism as responsibly as possible, uh, because, um, we really want to protect their, their health and their sustainability. So.

Justin Cox (23:03):

Right, allow for people to act on this love and interest for the species, but don't create some like wild West situation up on the mountain where...

Kirsten Gilardi (23:12):

Yeah, so when this all first started. I mean, there was a agreement across all three countries that they were going to do this tourism as responsibly as possible. And so that included really basic, but important things like minimizing the number of people that can go and visit a habituated gorilla group each day, that number is eight. So the countries agreed - we are not going to let five different groups of human beings. Eight human beings go to see a gorilla group every day. There will be one tourist group to visit one gorilla group a day. During pre-COVID, the distance minimum distance was seven meters. It's now been increased to 10 meters. Every at all, the countries knew that, you know, it was our collective responsibility to make sure that this tourism happened responsibly. And so...

Justin Cox (23:59):

That kind of idea of like doing this work, but making sure it all happens responsibly really is another moment to swing back to the, to the Southern residents because we're in this big conversation about like three year moratorium on, on whale-watching. I mean, the tourism, the tourism here happens typically in the form of boats going out and observing these amazing whales. And it's like, life-changing spiritual experiences for a lot of people, but at the same time, they're acoustic animals. There's noise that comes with that. And so it's easy to say, Oh, well, if you're, if you're in support of a moratorium on whale-watching or increased distances, at least temporarily and things like that, you're anti whale-watching, but it's like SeaDoc Society along with other partner organizations, we've helped like raise money to fund studies, to look at exactly like the economic impact of whale-watching.

Justin Cox (24:51):

And it's huge. Like it's a big, important part of this whole entire region's identity. Really. It's just a matter of saying there are 73, 74 of these animals left and there are three major threats that we know are directly affecting them. Let's like, think about a way to ensure that we continue to have this species or that the species can find some way to recover and thrive. And so that conversation's happening. What I'm curious about is like, how do you take the love for the species and the, and the sort of tourist attraction of the species and leverage that directly into conservation, like does like the permitting to go up on the mountain, go, is there a direct line from that back into like protecting them or funding the process of regulating that and everything?

Kirsten Gilardi (25:43):

No, it's, it's a really good question. I mean, there's two ways that gorilla tourism and the dollars that, that, that, that generates directly ties back to the conservation one is that it's absolutely providing the critical budget budget needs for the parks. So the parks employ people to monitor the gorillas, make sure they're safe, um, facilitate tourism, those tours and dollars fund that work. And so in that sense, it could hardly be more closely tied in many, many respects, but there's another really nice thing that happens in this area where, um, a portion of the tourism dollars that are raised and it's the government that controls this, they're the ones that are selling the permits to tourists to see the gorillas. A portion of those dollars comes back to the communities around the park and the communities are allowed to use those dollars to do something that benefits the community.

Kirsten Gilardi (26:38):

It might be to build a new school. It might be to renovate, uh, one of the community health centers. It might, uh, be used to add a more, uh, public water access points for, for community members. So, and that's really important because that forest is off limits to people in the communities. It is a protected area. So when the park turns around and gives some of that money back to the community, they can see they can for themselves see the value in that park, that forest existing, staying intact, providing safe habitat for gorillas. They can see that that has, um, a benefit for themselves and, you know, not the challenge. And I'm sure there's been a ton of thinking on this is how to turn, you know, the tourism around Southern resident killer whales to be something that, you know, does no harm, but actually it also adds to the conservation effort. Um, then that would be, that's the really important avenue to be exploring. And I'm sure it is.

Justin Cox (27:41):

Yeah, there are so many complicating things, but like what, what you describe that's happening in Uganda and Rwanda is like, it just strikes me as symbiotic on all levels. Like, like you said, people not who aren't actually going up into the park, but live in the communities that benefit from the tourism of it. It's like everyone has an interest in preserving this species. And the reality is that's always going to involve money.

Kirsten Gilardi (28:04):

Yeah. And yeah, that everybody has a stake in some way, has a stake in the success of the management and protection of the parks for the good of the gorillas. And, you know, as mentioned earlier, we had the, these gorillas live on the sides and tops of volcanoes that spanned the borders of three countries. Of course, the gorilla have no idea when they're crossing over an international boundary. They're at the top of one of these volcanoes and they're, they might cross over to Rwanda, into Congo, stay in Congo for awhile, come back over to Rwanda. So just that fact, that was the impetus for the formation of an intergovernmental body called the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration. The Virunga, the Virunga Messi is the name of all of those volcanoes that span that those borders, um, all three countries come together specifically around how to best manage and conserve the mountain gorillas that utilize the habitat that spans those boundaries. And so...

Justin Cox (29:04):

That's amazing.

Kirsten Gilardi (29:05):

Yeah, it is. It's, it's a pretty, you know, I you've probably heard before of the so-called peace parks, national parks, that span boundaries, and there was, was, uh, for a long time, a real push to establish more peace parks in a lot of ways the Virungas have kind of a functioned like the peace park. I mean, they have been the reason that those three governments can and do come together around a common goal, which is the conservation of the mountain gorilla.

Justin Cox (29:33):

We had a couple summers ago, we had J50 - Scarlet, this pretty young whale that basically fell behind her pod and then, um, ultimately disappeared and, and died clearly too late to turn it around for Scarlet or change her fate, but still a big deal for Southern resident killer whale conservation on the whole. Um, what does, what does an intervention like whether it's a sick animal or ensnared animal, there's kind of two questions. What does that typically look like in the field for Gorilla Doctors? And then also you can take these in whatever order you want. And not that you have a specific first time it happened like this one that I'm pinpointing with J50, but like what kind of opened the door to that kind of wild gorilla intervention

Kirsten Gilardi (30:18):

Again, kind of back to why the whole thing started was this issue of snares and this sense that it was our obligation as humans to mitigate the fact that these snares are set in the forest illegally. And some of them, you know, gorillas get caught in them. And so, so that was really from the very beginning was the sense that, you know, we have to do something about this and the governments had people in the parks finding and removing snares, but they couldn't find and remove them all, so gorillas get caught. So our veterinarians are basically, you know, we're we're teams in each of the three countries, can't be everywhere all the time. So we really do rely on the park, the individuals working in the parks every single day, who are monitoring the gorillas to let us know when they think they see a gorilla that looks sick or is injured, or obviously has a snare around an arm or leg or a neck. And they report that to us. We go immediately into the park to follow up on that report. I find myself often explaining or reminding people that we don't operate a gorilla hospital. The forest is our hospital. We do not take gorillas out of the forest to do, to take care of them. We, we bring everything, we need the equipment, the supplies, um, the medicines, everything goes into the park on, in backpacks. And we do the care for the gorillas there in the forest.

Justin Cox (31:42):

Real quick, when you say we, who are the veterinary, who are the Gorilla Doctors people, are they people that live in those countries?

Kirsten Gilardi (31:49):

Yeah. Sorry. Good, good, great question. Yeah. Our whole veterinary staff is Rwandan and Ugandan and Congolese. So we have, um, a team of three veterinarians in Rwanda, three in Uganda and two in Congo. And, um, and then, but we as also, you know, there are administrative and our technical staff that support those efforts as well as, um, individuals who work for the parks. They'll accompany us to that gorilla group to, um, to help as needed. But our veterinarians are the ones that are actually, you know, administering, you know, when they want to get their hands on a gorilla, when they need to get their hands on a gorilla. And for example, again, back to the snare example, you know, have to actually be able to get their hands on that animal. And they cannot do that unless the animal is anesthetized. So our veterinarians are bringing the darting equipment, into the forest, and administering an anesthetic with the dart and that animal then goes to sleep or veterinarians can then get close to the animal, always being super conscious of making sure that, um, we're gloved and masked and wearing, um, you know, outer wear long sleeves, everything to really minimize the potential that our close contact might accidentally, uh, transmit something to the gorillas, but they're, so the gorillas are lying anesthetized on the forest floor.

Kirsten Gilardi (33:10):

Our veterinarians are removing the snare, cleaning the wound collecting samples, because of course, any time we get our hands on a gorilla, for any reason, it's an incredible opportunity to get samples that might help us better understand the overall health of that individual and the population. So collecting samples, uh, administering, uh, antibiotics, administering anti-inflammatories, um, and then when we're all done, the anesthetics we use can essentially be reversed with other drugs. And we do that so that the gorillas wake up pretty quickly and can rejoin their group. People always ask, what are the other gorillas in the family group doing while our veterinarians are taking care of their mom or their sister or their baby in the cases of moms and infants, we almost always have to also anesthetize the mother because of course she's incredibly protective of her baby, and she'd never let us anesthetize her baby.

Kirsten Gilardi (34:04):

Um, and, and, and work on a baby, for example, to remove a snare, it's kind of unbelievable, but the rest of the gorilla group lets our veterinarians do their work. They will move off sometimes one or two of them, including a silver back, which is the adult, the adult males sexually mature males. There's always one that's kind of the lead. If you can imagine, can imagine a scene where our veterinarians are actually taking care of an anesthetized gorilla on the ground. And the rest of that family group is very close in some cases, even watching, but not protesting, you know, not trying to rescue their family member. Um, and you know, I don't, I really hate to anthropomorphize. I try not to, but it's hard to imagine that they're tolerating that whole activity. They're tolerating it because they understand that the Gorilla Doctors, veterinarians are, are caring for their family member. That's pretty rough.

Justin Cox (34:58):

Well, that is incredible. It really is. Yeah. So when you something I've I try to think about is like when you see an ensnared animal or you're 10 meters away from a sick gorilla, that's not leaving its sleeping spot or not eating you ha it's kind of clear as someone who's involved with Gorilla Doctors and has been around SeaDoc Society since its inception was a key part of its inception. Like that's a harder process with the killer whales. Like, do you have, have you thought about that at all?

Kirsten Gilardi (35:30):

Yeah, no, no. I think your point's a really good one. And um, kinda what is our process for getting to the point where we decide we need to intervene in the situation? And you know, the tipping point is always if the injury or the illness is life-threatening. If we, we feel that without an intervention, the gorilla is very likely going to suffer terribly or even die. That is a tipping point for us. Snare removals always happen because for whatever reason, they, the gorillas just rarely are they successful in taking the snares off themselves. You think they could do that, but they just don't. So, but I guess my point is we have many, many cases Justin, where we don't go and we don't treat the animal for its illness or injury. And I, and I do want to emphasize that, you know, we're, we're not trying to play mother nature here.

Kirsten Gilardi (36:21):

We're not trying to fix every problem. Certain amount of injury and illness is a natural part of their biology and ecology. And that's the case for all animals. If a gorilla is coughing, we will get a report from the park that the gorilla is coughing. Our veterinarians will go and check on the gorilla and assess for themselves. Does this look like a very, very mild case of respiratory upper respiratory tract illness? Does this look like something more serious? You know, what else might, you know, our veterinarians are looking for other signs that might suggest whether it's, uh, it's a serious illness at that moment, but more importantly, they just want, they get a sense for how sick is that gorilla on that day so that when they go and check on subsequent days, they have something to gauge. So if this animal's condition is worsening and you know, it went from coughing to now, coughing, uncontrollably, not eating, et cetera.

Kirsten Gilardi (37:18):

Then we know that something that is a disease process is really progressing. And that it's on a trajectory that, you know, if, if veterinarians don't intervene, that's the prognosis for a full recovery for that gorilla is poor. That's really kind of the thought process we go through, you know, the gorillas, are often get a little bit sick and they recovered just fine, just like we do. You know, you get, you get a cold, you don't feel good for a couple of days. Your immune system kicks in and you don't, you don't need to go to a doctor every time you get a cold, it's always a process. A decision-making process. We do it as a team. And of course we do it in close communication with our government partners. We don't, we, those, the decisions to actually go in and treat an animal is not one that we we take and do on our own. It's absolutely a collaborative decision-making process.

Justin Cox (38:12):

Before we go, at this moment, it's 2020 returning into 2021 mountain gorilla population is going up and it's extremely exciting. Um, it's the product of decades of work. The Southern resident killer whale population is in is, is low and sort of a tenuous point. There's a lot of like political discussion around it. There's a lot of scientific happening around it. And this, this spreads all the way into like dams and salmon and noise and pollution. I don't know. This is really a vague question. I don't, so you can kind of answer it any way you want to, or, or go somewhere that you feel like I haven't gone in this, in this interview, but like, where do we go? What happens next? Do you think? Or what's the right attitude to take into that?

Kirsten Gilardi (38:56):

So, um, I, you know, I think I can't speak to all of it, Justin. I, I can say that it's clear it's multifactorial. And for that reason alone, it's going to require all the tools in the toolbox and even some tools we haven't even thought of yet. And I hope that the group of people and agencies and organizations that are just so 100% dedicated to the recovery of the Southern resident killer whales will, will feel heartened that elsewhere in the world. We can point to an example of where in certain situations, you know, interventions conducted by highly skilled and trained veterinarians to provide care for individuals can make a difference for a population. And at this stage for Southern resident killer whales, when we were talking 73, 74 animals, every single individual accounts at this point, can't afford to lose an individual, right. We need every single young animal to grow into a reproductively mature animal and make more whales. So I, I, I hope that the larger group is applying any and all tools to the recovery of the species, but is also giving, um, and, and clearly house in that example with J50 um, embracing the fact that in some situations that veterinary care may be really, really critical and a tool again, just to say, it's not the absolutely not the only thing. It just, it needs to be, it's gotta be in the toolbox.

Justin Cox (40:26):

Yeah. When you talk about individuals like, so does, does Gorilla Doctors have like, essentially like the same way your doctor would have just like a file and data on the such and such individual animal that's identified by those nose wrinkles?

Kirsten Gilardi (40:38):

Yeah. We have data going back years and years and years. Um, and we have even daily health records. Um, every group is observed every day. Each individual is observed and, and we as determined whether it looks like it's normal and healthy that day, or whether it's showing any clinical signs. So we have those kinds of records going back years and years and years. And then of course, any time a gorilla is ill or injured, we've got, you know, that, that generates a medical record essentially on that particular, um, situation and our veterinarians, you know, for some individuals and go back to situations seven years earlier, where they cared for that animal. I mean, that's, that's happened on several occasions where our vets have cared for an adult animal that they remember taking a snare off when it was a baby, which is very cool. But yes, absolutely. Those that medical record keeping system, um, over time, just as your doctors is keeping records on, you can be done with these wildlife populations, especially where we can identify individuals.

Justin Cox (41:41):

Well, it was really awesome to catch up and talk to you about all this. And I think that this exercise of thinking about a species we have here that has sort of like a, a question mark on its future, you need to look to an example of something that's been done. And I think this is a really strong one and loved talking to you about it.

Kirsten Gilardi (42:01):

Yeah, thanks Justin. It's been a pleasure. And, um, again, as I said earlier, many ways, my worlds collide with these two species. And, um, so I, I'm just delighted and there's a potential that mountain gorillas in central Africa may have a role to play in the future of Southern resident killer whales. Um, what, what could be more, more exciting than that?

Justin Cox (42:23):

Awesome. That is a beautiful place to leave it. And I will see you on zoom calls and stuff down the line.

Kirsten Gilardi (42:28):

Great, Justin say hi to everyone out there for me!

Justin Cox (42:30):

Please take this moment to rate and review the show, tell some friends about it. Basically we're a small science-based nonprofit, but outreach is a huge part of our mission and your support in any way that you give. It means a ton to us. If you enjoy this kind of science-based storytelling, you should go to our website and click the newsletter tab and get our free monthly newsletter. I think you'll like it. Similarly, if you want to know more about Gorilla Doctors, you can go to GorillaDoctors.org. They also put out an amazing newsletter and those veterinarians are doing that work on a mountain and are often equipped with cameras. And so a lot of the pictures that they're taking are shared with their audience, you can reach me @justinatseadocsociety.org, and our logo was created by float.