The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is tucked away in a remote corner of southwest Uganda. Meaning “place of darkness” in the Runyakitara language, this dense rainforest makes a good hiding place for half of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas. The other half, which the American primatologist Dian Fossey befriended, live in Rwanda’s Virunga national park.
These majestic but shy creatures – whose existence generates about 60% of Uganda’s tourism revenue – like to hide, especially when they know veterinary intervention is afoot. If they see someone carrying a dart gun (for sedation, vaccinations, medicine, etc), they’ll walk backwards so as not to expose their backs, where the dart needs to land. They also like to mock-charge at humans, stopping suddenly to indicate they mean no harm. And
