Ecotourists are getting too close to mountain gorillas, risking passing on potentially deadly human coughs and colds – and the proof is on Instagram.
A search of the social media site has turned up hundreds of shots of people closer than the recommended 7 metres away from the apes.
Part of the problem is people seeking the perfect selfie to post online, says Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka at the Ugandan charity . “Social media is making the problem worse, for sure.”
Advertisement
Often the close encounters are initiated by young gorillas. “Juvenile primates tend to be more inquisitive,” says Gaspard van Hamme at Oxford Brookes University, UK, one of those who conducted the analysis.
Disease outbreaks
Mountain gorillas, living in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), are classed as endangered, with just 1004 animals at the last count. Their numbers have been slowly rising since the 1980s, although there have been increasing outbreaks of respiratory infections in the past few years.
In one such case in Rwanda, 11 out of 12 animals in a group had runny noses and were coughing and lethargic. Vets managed to give antibiotics to five, but two untreated ones died. Post-mortems showed they were infected with a virus that normally affects people called human metapneumovirus.
All three countries permit treks into the forests to see gorillas, but people are supposed to keep at least 7 metres away. In the DRC, they are also supposed to wear face masks. To see if the rules are being followed, van Hamme and his colleagues searched Instagram for pictures of people on gorilla treks since 2013. For any that showed a person and an ape, they estimated the distance.
Out of 643 photographs, nearly every one showed people closer than 7 metres and 20 showed physical contact. Of those taken in the DRC, about two-thirds showed people wearing face masks, but no one used them in the other two countries. The team presented its work at the meeting in Oxford last month.
Happens often
The findings don’t show that the rules are always broken, as people may be more likely to post shots where the animals are close, says van Hamme. “The goal was not to say that it happens in this proportion of the total – but that it does happen very often.”
People may be wearing face masks most of the time and just taking them off for a photo, he says. “But that still presents a risk.”
The tourism should continue, though, as it brings much needed money into conservation programs, says Kalema-Zikusoka. It also motivates local people to protect the apes. “Otherwise, if a gorilla comes into their garden they would kill it. But the gorillas might be the reason their child has a job.”
Recently a video of some went viral online. “Tourists are expecting to get the same experience,” says Kalema-Zikusoka.
Enforce the rules
Fabian Leendertz at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin says it is up to tour sites to enforce the rules more strictly. “There’s big variability among the guides. People are more likely to give a guide a tip if they get a good selfie.”
Leendertz says face masks are essential because sometimes people can’t back away from the animals. “The gorilla can come close to you and you can’t escape because you’re in a thick bush.”
Uganda looks set to start enforcing the face mask rule, after a meeting of conservationists, park wardens and tourism leaders agreed on this recommendation at the African Primatological Society Conference, held in Entebbe, Uganda, last month.
Van Hamme believes people who care about protecting gorillas would be willing to wear masks and keep their distance if the reasons are explained. “I don’t think the experience would be less enjoyable. But the pictures may get less likes on Instagram.”
