Georgia Tech researchers are using advanced technologies to help save endangered mountain gorillas in Rwanda. Working in partnership with conservation organizations and universities on two continents, scientists continue the work of naturalist Dian Fossey, who for nearly 18 years until her murder in 1985, studied the lives of mountain gorillas living in the Virunga Mountain Range. Armed with camera, binoculars and field journal, she and a community of trackers documented intimate details of the gorillas' lives. The partnership will put the technologies of remote sensing into the hands of field scientists working to protect the gorillas, while helping Rwanda rebuild its national university and recover from a genocidal 1994 war. It may also demonstrate how science can boost the struggle to protect other endangered species.
Habitat loss poses the single greatest threat to the mountain gorillas.
The most densely populated nation in Africa, Rwanda today struggles with the task of resettling more than a million people in the aftermath of war. The need for crop land, as well as timber for homes and cooking, threatens the protected reserves and allows human disease into the fragile gorilla habitat. The first applications of the new technology, therefore, will be to assess the existing gorilla habitat, explains Nicholas Faust, principal research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. That will give researchers and Rwandan authorities a measure of how many gorillas the area can support, and establish a baseline for documenting future habitat loss. The technology may also help scientists understand the complex environmental interactions affecting gorillas.