Gorillas: The Canary in the Jungle

Somewhere in the forests of East Africa, a group of veterinarians called “Gorilla Doctors” from Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are losing sleep. Not over human patients — but over gorillas, chimpanzees, and other wildlife.

There's an active Ebola outbreak in the eastern DRC right now. And while the world's attention tends to focus on the human toll, these vets are watching something just as alarming that could unfold in the forest.

Ebola is catastrophic for gorillas. We're talking mortality rates up to 98%. Between 2002 and 2004, two back-to-back outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo wiped out an estimated 5,500 western gorillas — entire communities gone. Those losses were so severe that they pushed western gorillas from "endangered" to “critically endangered” status. Recovery from outbreaks like these is predicted to take decades.

Scientists have modeled what would happen if just a single gorilla in Virunga National Park became infected today. Their conclusion? Fewer than 20% of the population would survive beyond 100 days.

Where does Ebola come from? Often, it starts with fruit bats. These bats appear to be immune to the virus, but they are carriers. The disease is passed on when wild animals like gorillas or other non-human primates or domestic animals come in contact with bat saliva, urine, and feces. Humans catch it from consuming infected animals and then from other humans.

Now here's where it gets complicated. The most obvious solution to protect gorillas — closing the national parks — creates its own crisis. Close the parks, and you lose the rangers. Lose the rangers and poaching increases. That also collapses the ecotourism economy, and desperate communities turn to bushmeat hunting to feed their families. That increases the very contact between animals and humans that we're trying to prevent. Every solution has a shadow.

This is what public health experts call a One Health problem, where human health, animal health, and ecosystem stability are all interwoven. Disease transmission from animals is not just an African issue. Avian flu, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, Hantavirus, HIV, and Monkeypox are just some of the illnesses that crossed from animals to humans. It turns out that animal die-offs like the great apes sometimes precede human Ebola outbreaks, giving us a window to act before the virus spreads globally.

Americans should care about gorillas not just because they're magnificent animals, but because what happens in those forests doesn't stay there. Diseases can reach a market, then an airport, then another continent within days. We learned that lesson with COVID-19. We're still learning it.

The vets are preparing for the worst, searching for ways to limit human-animal contact. As you can imagine, isolating an infected gorilla is not exactly straightforward. So the vets are monitoring wildlife for clinical signs and providing training to park staff, rangers, and villagers so they can spot early signs of spread.

For now, they're watching, waiting, and hoping the forest stays quiet.

— Dr. Michael Wilkes with a Second Opinion

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